


There's Something Beautiful and Tragic in the Fallout

by inthesnowglobe



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cliffhangers, Cross Fandoms, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Masturbation, Nuclear Winter, Sansador, Sexual Tension, Survival, post apocalyptic, sansan
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-04
Updated: 2014-04-04
Packaged: 2017-12-31 11:48:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 34,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1031376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inthesnowglobe/pseuds/inthesnowglobe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After having finally escaped Vault 108, Sansa decides to find the rest of her family in the wasteland of what used to be Westeros.</p><p>Ok... This is a bastardization of GoT and Fallout. It is written more specifically for the GoT people. You will still be able to follow if you have never played the video games but you probably won't care to read it if you know nothing about GoT. I will elaborate in the chapters as I go along about some of the particularly 'Fallout' stuff. </p><p>Just roll with it!</p><p>As per usual, I will be writing this as it occurs to me. No, I don't have a plan. This could get ugly; I'm not nice to my characters sometimes. But when you play the game, you live or you die and the game was rigged from the start.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

**Sansa**

 

Stepping out into the wasteland for the first time, Sansa was met with only a dusty wind whipping at her hair and an eerie silence. Her heart was racing in her chest. Stepping out of the Vault into the unknown was almost as scary as what she left behind.

 

 _Almost_.

 

She knew she couldn't stand here and wait for someone to come after her. The alarm had been set off when the doors had been breached. Dontos, the guard on duty, was no doubt being mercilessly questioned and punished even now.

 

She had to hurry.

 

With nothing but the clothes on her back and a collection of items in her pockets, she started to jog towards a cluster of derelict buildings. Maybe she could find someone living in them or could scavenge something of use. She wasn't sure what Westeros was like now. She had been kept in the Vault with Joffrey, but she could certainly tell that the war had taken it's toll on the capital.

 

Margarey had refused to come with her. She had been too afraid of the world outside the Vault and what state the war had left it in. And the people in it. She had become complacent with the security of Vault 108 and couldn’t bring herself to leave the safety and luxury of what was familiar. Sansa couldn't suffer life in the Vault anymore, even with the luxuries the desolate wasteland surely wouldn’t afford her. She would rather be a lone wanderer than a target for Joffrey's cruelty.

 

Sansa came up to the scattered and abandoned buildings. They had been houses before they had been all but destroyed. Now they were just skeletons of what may have been a happy and thriving neighborhood before the bombs fell. Only the frames remained.

 

_Those aren’t houses. Those are termites holding hands._

 

She knew that she had to hurry on but she was winded from running. Besides, if she wanted to survive out here, she was going to need more than some bobby pins, a bottle of water, an apple and a switchblade she had stolen from Joffrey. Somehow she was going to have to make it to Winterfell. Maybe there was something of value in the ruins of these houses.

 

Sansa began to tentatively step amongst the debris. She was overly aware that any injury out here could mean death. Some of the mailboxes belonging to the houses still stood but they were usually empty. Mail wouldn’t do her much good anyway but she was hoping to find some money in some long lost birthday card. She found a couple of magazines but doubted she would have any use for those. She went up to the side of one of the houses and walked through the framework to search the wreckage. She found a backpack that would come in handy for carrying her things but found nothing else that she would imagine would be helpful. Detritus and garbage mostly.

 

She moved over to the next house and began to scan the area where she noticed the remains of a fire and wrappings from what she assumed was food. Someone had been here recently. The area had no doubt been picked over already and would yield nothing of value. She packed her few belongings in the backpack and began to continue on her way away from the Vault when something caught her eye.

 

She went over to where something shiny and metallic was peaking up out of the rubble. Sansa moved pieces of splintered wood and tufts of insulation out of the way and found a large footlocker buried among the junk. She tried to lift the lid but found that it was locked.

 

 _It must have_ something _in it if it's locked._

 

She tried prying it open, hoping the lock would break, but the only thing she succeeded in breaking was a fingernail. She sucked on the blood coming from the quick of her broken nail and remembered the bobby pins in her backpack. She wondered if the lock could be picked. She figured it was worth a shot and dug one out of the pockets in the bag. She slid it into the keyhole and began to twist and turn. She had almost given it up as futile when she felt something inside the lock give. She twisted harder but broke the bobby pin. She felt like she had almost been able to get the lock to open so she dug another pin out of her bag. She put it into the hole and began twisting again. After a few minutes of coaxing, she felt the tumblers in the lock give and the latch sprang open.

 

She lifted the lid and looked inside the footlocker. She found a few interesting items inside. Someone had clearly hoarded these things after the war. She found a small supply of food that she was happy to see. She swung her bag off of her back and stuffed it inside. A bottle of whiskey was lying on the bottom of the trunk and while she didn’t really want that, she was sure someone else would. Maybe she could sell it or trade it for something more useful. There was also a first aid kit and a bottle of water in the trunk, both of which she was extremely happy to see. She picked up the water and looked at the handmade label.

 

_Irr. water._

 

“You must be pretty desperate if you are going to drink that irradiated shit,” came a gruff voice behind her.

 

She gasped and dropped the bottle of water back in the trunk as she quickly turned around to see who had found her. The sight that met her couldn’t have been more terrifying. She felt stupid for having put the switchblade in her backpack though she didn’t know what good the tiny blade would do against this giant of a man. He crossed the distance between them in a few long, sure-footed strides. Sansa squeezed her eyes shut and cowered even lower beside the footlocker, afraid of what he was going to do to her.

 

“Well, it wasn’t a complete waste of a pin. I've never gotten the hang of that lock picking shit,” she heard him grumble right over her head. She opened her eyes and saw him reaching over her into the trunk. He rummaged around a bit and pulled the bottle of whiskey out victoriously. “This stuff is getting rarer and rarer.”

 

He unscrewed the cap and took a long drink from it. He smacked his lips satisfactorily and looked down at Sansa. She felt herself trembling underneath his gaze and her heart raced in her chest. This man was easily six and a half feet tall. He had pieces of scratched leather armor strapped over his black  t-shirt and had a collection of weapons in various sheaths and holsters hanging just out of reach of his massive hands. She eyed the pistols in his side holsters and the large knife strapped to his right thigh. Some kind of big automatic machine gun was lashed to his back. She could see, even with the armor, that this man was made out of pure muscle. His long black hair hung to his shoulders and over his face but she could still make out what was behind the curtain. The left side of his face was covered in scars long healed though still shiny and pink.

 

“Thanks for opening that for me. I thought I was going to have to break it open,” he said as he appraised her. “Nice outfit.”

 

Sansa looked down at her Vault issued jumpsuit before bringing her eyes back up to him.

 

“Has the little bird flown from her nest? I haven't seen a Vault-dweller around in a while.”

 

“I just left.” She couldn’t imagine why she was telling this terrifying stranger about fleeing the Vault.

 

He nodded thoughtfully. “I couldn't live in a hole either. Where are your mommy and daddy, little girl? Back in the Vault? Didn’t they tell you how dangerous it is out here?” he asked as he offered her a hand and helped her to her feet.

 

She trembled and eyed his guns again.

 

“My dad is dead, he was murdered in the Vault, well, I think he was. And I'm not a little girl. I'm twenty-two.” She wasn’t sure what made her concentrate on such an insignificant detail.

 

He lowered a heavy-lidded gaze down her body. “No, you aren’t, are you?”

 

_Why had she said anything?_

 

The jumpsuit did little to help hide the curves of her body from his roving eyes. “Do you know which way Winterfell is?” she asked in the hopes of distracting him.

 

His eyes snapped up to meet hers. “Winterfell? What business does a Vault-dweller have in Winterfell with that bunch of self-righteous assholes?”

 

“Have you been there?” she asked hopefully.

 

“Aye. I've been there. Accidentally shot Jory in the leg when I had a direwolf on top of me and now the mayor won't let me back in. He's always up on that goddamn look out tower. He was bound to get shot eventually.”

 

“Who is the mayor?”

 

The man narrowed his eyes skeptically before answering her. “Kid named Stark. He's got hair about your color.”

 

Sansa felt her eyes go wide.

 

_Robb was mayor of Winterfell._

 

Dawning crossed his face before he suddenly grabbed her by the top of the arm roughly and pulling her in close. His eyes searched her face as she panted in fear and tried to wiggle out of his grasp.

 

“Please! You're hurting me!” She felt the hot tears blur her vision and reduce his face to a looming shadow.

 

“Fuck me,” he grumbled quietly. “The little bird is the oldest Stark girl. You're Sansa.”

 

“How do you know me?” she whimpered. He still hadn’t let go of her arm but he had loosened his hold.

 

“You look just like your mother and your brothers.”

 

The plural tense of the word had not escaped her attention. “Which brothers?” she said as he let her arm go entirely as he took another long pull from the whiskey bottle and began digging through the footlocker.

 

“Mayor Stark... Robert is it?”

 

“Robb, yeah.” She had completely forgotten about the contents of the footlocker. To hear that so much of her family had survived the war and the bombs was a relief that couldn’t be found in a first-aid kit.

 

“Yeah, that's him. You look a lot like him. Him and that little fucker that will cheat you out of all your money. The one with the supply store.”

 

“I've been in the Vault for the past three years. Rickon has his own store?” She had never resembled Bran much.

 

“That's what he calls it,” the stranger said as he raised up with the contents of the trunk in his hands. Sansa looked covetously at the first-aid kit but she didn’t dare mention to this man that it had been her to unlock the trunk.

 

“Is that all of my family in Winterfell?” she asked, afraid to know the answer.

 

The man scoffed. “Hardly. Town's eat up with them.” He moved in closer and picked her bag up off of the ground. She started to protest but thought better of it. “There's that doctor; the crippled one,” he said thoughtfully as he started putting the first-aid kit, water and food into her backpack. “The sheriff is that Targaryen guy. I don’t know his name but I know he's Robb's cousin. The deputy is related somehow too.”

 

Sansa frowned and shook her head. She didn't know any Targaryens and she certainly didn’t know of any cousins. The deputy was unknown too but the most troubling part was that the man hadn't mentioned Arya.

 

“What about another girl? She's younger than me,” she said hopefully.

 

“Look girl, I don’t know. I told you, I haven't even been through the gates for almost a year. Never liked that place much anyway.”

 

Sansa nodded her head and looked away from the man who was now holding every belonging she had in his hands. He was going to rob her and she didn't even find out about her sister. “Fine,” she said as she felt angry tears roll down her cheeks. “Just point me in the direction then and I'll be on my way.”

 

The man huffed out a laugh. “You think I'm letting you go?”

 

Sansa looked up at him, wide-eyed with fear.

 

He shook his head. “Hell no I'm not letting you go. You are worth a fortune. I'm taking you to Winterfell myself. Robb has a nice reward promised for whoever finds you and brings you home. Or, at least he did a year ago. Posters were hanging from everything in the town. Every mercenary in the wasteland has been looking for you.” He gave another bark of laughter. “And to think, you were hiding under a rock the whole time. Everyone thought you were dead.”

 

Sansa felt her heart leap in her chest. “So you'll help me get home?”

 

“I'm doing this for the money. The wasteland is a dangerous place and if anyone tries hurting you I'll kill them. It's a happy coincidence that we want the same thing.”

 

She looked up at him as he handed her the backpack back to her and took the last gulp of the whiskey in the bottle. She didn’t much care about his intentions, either way he was going to be giving her an escort back to Winterfell. She took in the intimidating sight of him and suddenly felt unsure. She didn't know him. He could hurt her or he could rape her. She didn’t really think he was going to give her a choice one way or another, besides, if he sent her home scarred and sullied, then he couldn’t exactly claim his reward money.

 

“You wont hurt me.” It was posed as a question, but it came out more like a statement. Either way, he answered her with a low deep voice.

 

“No little bird, I won't hurt you.”

 

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok, lets pretend that Sansa isn't quite so prude and virginal in this because, well... its my story. We have all read the tedium of slow burning Sansan over and over and over. Poor timid Sansa taking her first time slow. 
> 
> *kicks canon out the door*

 

**Sansa**

 

They had been traveling West all day long when they met the first signs of trouble. It was what the man had called a White Walker. He had pulled the pistol from his side holster and taken a quick aim before expertly reducing it to a pile of ash. Sansa gasped at the sight of the creature disintegrating before her eyes.

 

“What was that?” she asked incredulously as the man sifted through the ashes. He pulled a pencil out of the pile and tossed it aside.

 

“Told you. A White Walker. The capital is infested with them and we are close to King's Landing. When the bombs fell, the Wall did too.”

 

“No. It's like you burned it or something.”

 

“Oh, that,” he said as he held up a strange looking pistol. “Plasma pistol. Energy weapons are the only thing that can kill those bastards. The energy cells are hard to find but...” He left the sentence hanging in the air and shrugged his shoulders. “You're brother always seemed to have a good supply of ammo.” He put the pistol back in his holster and started walking again.

 

They fell back into the silence that they had been traveling in all day. He didn’t make conversation and she was too intimidated to try. He didn’t seem like the type that would want to answer all of her questions but she couldn't stop herself from the one that was gnawing at her the hardest.

 

“What's your name?” he shot her a look and she decided to rephrase her question. “Like, what do people call you?”

 

He looked forward again. “Most people call me The Hound.”

 

She nodded her head and kept walking behind him. His strides were longer than hers and she was exhausted from trying to keep up with him. “Where did that name come from?” she almost panted.

 

He turned around and let her catch up to him. She suspected he was annoyed and his tone confirmed it. “For a few reasons. Keep up girl.”

 

The sun was starting to go down as The Hound looked down at what looked like a large watch on his forearm. “We are close to a good spot to stay the night. There is a cave close by. Hopefully nothing else is sleeping in it tonight.”

 

She jogged up next to him and looked at the device on his arm. “What is that thing?” she asked as he turned and fell back in stride with her. She noticed he had slowed his pace a bit.

 

He twisted his wrist and looked down at a small digital screen glowing green. “It's a GPS. It's also a radar that can tell me if any enemies are in the immediate area and it detects any traces of radiation in the air. It's got a flashlight and a radio too,” he said as he pushed a button. The sounds of a radio DJ named Three Dog rang out around them. He howled and introduced the next song. Before it could come on, static interrupted and cut of the signal.

 

The Hound clicked the radio off  again. “That station gets shitty signal. Some of the Walkers destroyed the towel in the capital ruins. Three dog has been trying to contract me to fix it.”

 

“Why don't you?”

 

“Because he won't pay me. He plays good music but it's too political for my taste. He's a bit more noble than I am and says shit like, 'Fixing the station that educates the public should be payment enough.' Yeah, that's pretty and fluffy but it won't buy food or medical attention when I get my ass shot off trying to scavenge the parts. Mercs don’t work for free and I'm no fucking hero.”

 

“Don't you ever want to do something because it's the right thing to do?”

 

“No,” he stated simply. “The cave is right up here.”

 

She saw an outcrop of rocks appear as they reached the crest of the hill. “Stay here at the mouth. I'm going to make sure nothing is lurking inside.”

 

She nodded and he disappeared into the gloom. She saw the glow of his GPS turn on and saw him draw his combat knife from his thigh. She waited anxiously and turned back to look out at the sun setting over a rise of hills. She didn't know how big the cave was but it must have been pretty expansive if it was taking him this long to come back out. The gnawing worry that he may never come back out wouldn't leave her mind. She was beginning to think that she would never be able to survive the hostile wastes without him. She had begun to fidget when she felt a large hand clamp over her shoulder. She squealed and turned around to meet The Hound with amusement in his eyes.

 

“You're jumpy,” he teased her.

 

“What happened?” she asked when she noticed some deep gashes on his leg and blood on his hands.

 

“Direwolf. The pelt will fetch a good price if we find someone to trade with. We got lucky too,” he said taking her hand and helping her into the darkness of the cave. “Seems the bitch has been busy. There are a few bodies in here we can search and strip. One looked like it was about your size. You need something better than that worthless jumpsuit.” He led her to a rock and let her sit while he busied himself with a fire.

 

“I'm not wearing something off of a dead person!” she exclaimed, horrified.

 

“If we don’t get you something a little more rugged then you are going to _be_ a dead person. Let me see your pack.”

 

She took it off and handed it to him. He took it and set it on the ground beside him. He started unstrapping the armor piece by piece until he was down to his t-shirt and a pair of cargo pants. He began to unbuckle the belt around his waist and unbutton the closures on his pants. Sansa stared wide-eyed at him and blushed furiously when he shrugged his pants down to the tops of his boots, leaving him in only a pair of boxer briefs. She looked away quickly as he began to clean and bandage his wounds.

 

“Fucking direwolves,” he muttered to himself as he sucked in a breath through his teeth in pain. “We should save the food and eat some of the meat. Who knows when we will find more. I'll skin it and cut some up if you want to look around here for anything useful.” He tossed her the GPS, forcing her to look back up at him. He caught her staring at him but was kind enough to ignore it. “That one is the flashlight.”

 

She found the button and turned on the dim green light. She tried to forget about The Hound nursing his wounds by the fire but she couldn’t stop her eyes from moving back to were he was sitting. He didn’t seem to notice her as he was wrapping a piece of gauze around his thigh. She allowed herself to examine the muscles working under his flesh as they flexed to move his leg up and down; following the rhythm of his hands as he worked. The wasteland had cut and chiseled him into a finely tuned machine. The thin black t-shirt was stretched across his shoulders and chest. Every groove of his abdomen could be seen through the stretchy cotton. She noticed far too late that he had stopped wrapping his leg and had been staring at her with a mix of curiosity and amusement on his face.

 

_How long have I been staring?_

 

She blushed and turned to go search the cave. She found a litter of tin cans and old books across the floor until she almost tripped over one of the cadavers The Hound had been referring to. She gasped and struggled to regain her balance so she wasn’t sent sprawling on top of it. This must have been the one he had been referring to. It seemed it had been a small man who was about her size though perhaps a bit taller.

 

“Well, go on. Take it off of him,” he mumbled into her ear startlingly close. For such a big man, he sure was quiet. She turned to look at him and found him leaning over inches from her face. She felt the hot air between them as the shared breaths. She could smell the scent of sweat and blood over something that was purely masculine and warm. It was an intoxicating blend of aromas.

 

“I-” she gaped.  He straightened up and rolled his eyes.

 

“Girls,” he said as he unceremoniously hoisted the body up and dragged it over to the fire where he started undoing the straps of the armor.

 

She looked back towards the back of the cave and kept looking around. There was a small alcove where a metal shelf had been put there by someone long ago, as indicated by the massive amounts of dust and cobwebs. She blew at the dust and waved a hand through the webs. She found more books, a bottle of scotch, some superglue, duct tape, a small bottle of pills and a key. She was running her hands over the shelves when she felt something prick her finger. She jumped and recoiled.

 

“Here, try this on,” The Hound said as he came up behind her holding up pieces of the armor. “What's wrong?”

 

“Something pricked my finger,” she said nodding to the offending shelves.

 

The Hound felt around carefully and pulled a syringe off of the shelf. “Well, the needle isn't rusted so that's good. This looks like Med-X,” he said holding it up to the light.

 

“What's Med-X?” she asked nervously.

 

“It's a painkiller. It has to go into a vein so you'll be fine. There's a lot of fiends who would like to get their hands on this. It's pretty addictive but it might come in handy. Hey,” he said looking back to the shelf. “Scotch.”

 

Sansa sucked on the tip of her finger and smirked at him. “Do you always drink this much?”

 

He narrowed his eyes dangerously at her. “Be thankful I'm not one of the fiends. A pretty little thing like you wouldn’t stand much of a chance.”

 

She dropped his gaze and picked the key off of the shelf. “What do you think this goes to?”

 

“No fucking telling. Keep it anyway,” he said going back to the fire.

 

She kept up her search around the cave until she found another body. This was a woman judging by the clothes that hung to the dry skeleton. Sansa looked back and saw The Hound dragging a huge shaggy creature to the back of the cave. Sansa knelt down and began to timidly pull at the clothes on the long deceased woman. She silently said a small prayer for desecrating the dead and held the clothes up to her body to size them up.

 

“Where should I change?” she asked as she turned back around to face The Hound with his knife buried to the hilt into the beasts gut. He looked up at her slowly and then looked around the cave waving his knife vaguely in the air. The gesture sent drops of blood flying.

 

“Your modesty will remain in tact. I'm busy,” he said looking back down to the gigantic direwolf.

 

She blushed and walked into a dark corner of the cave but found that she could tell how the clothes were supposed to go so she tip-toed back to the fire. She shrugged out of her jumpsuit and was left in only in her cotton panties and bra. A gust of cold wind came in through the opening of the cave and raised goosebumps on her arms and legs. She gave a small gasp causing The Hound to look up from his task. She blushed again and tried to cover herself.

 

The Hound huffed in laughter but didn’t stop appreciating her. “Hey, you got to look at me. What?” he said by her dumbfounded expression. “You think I didn’t notice?” He smirked and let his eyes wander again before he looked back down to his task and got back to work.

 

Sansa felt embarassed though she didn’t know if it was from getting caught staring at him or if it was from being almost naked into front of this stranger.

 

_This male stranger. This attractive male stranger._

 

Sansa quickly pulled the pants on. They fit and had a thick leather belt but were loose in the hips and the crotch. The 'shirt' had been cut at the midriff, leaving her stomach exposed but at least it covered her arms. The deep V of the stretch cotton exposed more of her cleavage than she would have liked but at least they were warm clothes. She kept her old socks and laced up the thick leather boots from the corpse. They were from the man and the faint smell of death still clung to them. She tried to shake it from her mind but knew that the shoes from the woman wouldn’t fit her. She had large feet for a woman. She picked up a piece of the armor and tried to puzzle out where it went and how she was supposed to strap it on.

 

Apparently sensing her confusion, The Hound walked over to her as he wiped the blood from his hands. “Here, let me help.”

 

He took the gauntlet from her hands and instructed her to lift her right arm. “This stuff is pretty beat up, but it will be better than nothing. It will help keep you warm too. Winter is coming.”

 

Sansa looked up at him with a smile on her face as he fit the thick leather pieces to her. She gave a sharp intake of breath as he was strapping one of the pieces to her thigh and grazed the juncture of her thighs. She told herself she should feel scandalized but she couldn’t ignore that it had elicited some shameful pleasure in her. She felt her sex heat up as her neck and face heated up with a deep blush that she prayed he wouldn’t notice.

 

When he was done, he stepped back and looked at her appreciatively. “How's that fit? Can you move? Is it too heavy?”

 

She moved experimentally. “I don’t know. It is pretty heavy.”

 

“Can you run?”

 

“Yeah, I think.”

 

The Hound nodded.

 

“The pants are too loose,” she said pulling at the extra fabric between her legs.

 

His eyes fell to the spot he had accidentally caressed and his lips parted. He seemed to remember himself  and met her eyes as he offered her advice. “That's good.  Too tight and it would be restricting. This allows you to move better.”

 

Sansa felt her heart fluttering in her chest as he looked her up and down again. He smiled slightly giving a strange twist to the ruined side of his face. “You look like a real wastelander now.” He nodded. “It suits you.”

 

She felt herself smile at the compliment. “Thank you.” She had a feeling he found it beyond merely suiting. His eyes took a long time to leave her as he went back to the fire and turned the chunks of meat on the flames. The smell of roasting meat made her stomach rumble and her mouth water.

 

“You know, maybe we should tan this hide. It's been getting cold at night. This is a little direwolf but it would make a suitable cloak for you,” he said leaning back on his elbows by the fire.

 

“What's your name?” she blurted before she could stop herself. “I can't call you Hound very well,” she added shyly.

 

He smirked at her again and took a long pause. “You could actually. That’s what most people address me as.”

 

“And it doesn’t bother you?”

 

“I've gotten used to it.”

 

“I would like to have a name for the man who is helping me so much.”

 

“I'm not a knight in shining armor, little bird. I just need to get paid.”

 

She found herself disappointed by his tone.

 

“Ok. Hound it is,” she said sinking onto the rock by the fire.


	3. Chapter 3

 

**Sansa**

 

“Quick! Give me that key!” Sansa said running into the circle of firelight.

 

“It's in your pack, not mine,” The Hound said as he chewed on some direwolf meat. Sansa found herself wondering what his lips would feel like, one side having been scarred, as he licked at the grease from the meat at the corner of his mouth.

 

“I found another locked trunk. I wanted to try the key instead of trying to pick it,” she said as she rummaged around her bag.

 

“I don’t think speed will matter much. The trunk isn't going anywhere. Let me know if you find any ordinance in there,” he called after her as she dashed to the back of the cave to find the trunk again. She heard him follow after her anyway.

 

She put the key in the hole and turned it. The lock was rusty from the damp cave air but it gave with a little persuasion and opened. The Hound hovered over her and aimed his light onto the contents.

 

“Woah,” The Hound said as he looked into the trunk. Inside were several small bottles and tins. There were more needles and vials of mysterious liquids. There was also a bottle of wine. There were a few bullets that he picked out and examined. “.44 magnum. Nice. I was getting dangerously low.” He pulled the gun from the left side of his holster and put the bullets into the spinning chamber. The rest he pocketed.

 

“What is all of this?” Sansa asked him looking back down into the trunk. “Is this medicine?”

 

“No. These are drugs. We found some fiend's cache, little bird. My guess is it's one of these guys',” he said gesturing to the dead bodies in the cave. “Pack it all up. It will be valuable to trade later. Watch out for those needles.”

 

The Hound went back to the fire, grabbed her bag and brought it to her. Sansa picked through the trunk carefully, examining things as she went. He reached down into the trunk and picked up a bottle.

 

“What's that?” she asked.

 

“I think it's Jet. Nasty stuff. Super addictive.”

 

“What are these?” she said holding up a tin of pills.

 

He took it from her and grinned. “These are Mentats. They are pretty benign. But that,” he said frowning as he pointed to another bottle in the trunk. “That's Psycho. That's really wicked stuff. I used to do a lot of it. The name will tell you all you need to know about it. Too bad there isn't any Hydra in there.”

 

Sansa looked back up to him and frowned. “I thought you didn’t care about drugs.”

 

The Hound quirked his head slightly. “I'm not above taking a hit of Hydra if I’m dying though. Get's you higher than a fucking kite but it will fix the worst of injuries almost overnight.”

 

She thought that seemed logical. “So you never do Psycho anymore?”

 

“No,” he said grinning down at her. “I'm dangerous enough as it is.” He turned and walked back to the fire. He uncapped the bottle of scotch and tucked in with another chunk of meat.

 

Sansa finished putting all of the drugs into her bag and came over to join him. She grabbed a chunk of the juicy meat and began eating. “Do you think you could help me with the cork on the wine?” she asked him.

 

“We can try. It's probably pretty rotten though.” He took the bottle from her and pulled the large knife out of its sheath. “Damnit. I need something smaller,” he mumbled to himself.

 

“Oh! I have a small knife,” she said remembering the switchblade in her bag. She pulled it out and walked over to sit next to him. He took the knife and looked at her. “Where did you get this?”

 

She blushed. “I stole it before I left the Vault. It was my boyfriend's.”

 

He popped the blade out and began trying to remove the cork without crumbling it. “Why didn't he come with you?”

 

“He was the reason I left.”

 

The Hound stopped what he was doing and looked up through his eyelashes at the cave in front of him. He quickly got back to liberating the bottle of its cork. He twisted the knife and pulled the cork slowly from the neck of the bottle. He handed the bottle back to her. “You are braver than me. Wine goes bad, you know?”

 

Sansa smelled the wine as it breathed for the first time in God knew how long. It smelled pretty sour. She took a experimental sip through pursed lips and grimaced when she was met with the particulate dregs of sediment. The wine had long since spoiled. Not being able to refrain, she spit it out on the cave ground beside her.

 

The Hound laughed and offered her the bottle of scotch. “It's actually pretty smooth.”

 

She took the bottle and drank a small sip. The liquid didn’t burn going down but the flavor was something she could do without. She took another bite of the direwolf meat and enjoyed the mixture of flavors. She took a bigger gulp and handed it back to The Hound.

 

“Thank you,” she said after she swallowed. “I'm sorry for spitting. That's not very... lady-like or attractive of me.”

 

He looked down at her in amusement. “Why are you so worried about being 'attractive?' It's not easy for most people to be attractive in the wasteland. Besides, being attractive will just get you raped and killed.”

 

“I suppose so,” she said as she undid the braid in her long auburn hair. She combed her fingers through the soft waves until it tumbled over her shoulders.

 

The Hound watched her, fascinated. “And yet, you are still trying awfully hard. If I were you I would cut all of this off,” he said lifting a lock and holding it up to the firelight. “It would make my job a hell of a lot easier.”

 

Sansa looked at him, horrified. “You want me to cut off my hair?”

 

“It will draw a lot of attention. But on the other hand,” he said as he dreamily ran his fingers through it. “There is so little beauty in the wasteland. It would be a shame.”

 

Sansa blushed deeply and looked up at The Hound through her eyelashes. He was staring off into the fire but his fingers were still lazily running over the ends of her hair.

 

_Was he calling me beautiful?_

 

Sansa's heart was racing in her chest. Feeling emboldened by the scotch, Sansa lifted her hand and felt a lock of his long black hair. He tensed and turned to her abruptly as he grabbed her wrist.

 

“Ow-”

 

“What are you doing?”

 

“I just wanted to feel it. You felt mine.”

 

The Hound let go of her wrist and turned back to the fire. Taking that as a sign of assent, Sansa ran her fingers through the ends of his hair.

 

“It's dirty,” he said simply.

 

“It's soft.”

 

“Because it's dirty.”

 

“Does it bother you being in your face all the time?”

 

“No,” he said with a shrug. “I'm used to it.”

 

Sansa kept her fingers in his hair as she twisted it and played with it. His eyes drifted closed and she was sure that if he could purr he would have started. Suddenly, feeling awkward about running her hands through his hair, she pulled her hand back to her lap and stared into the fire.

 

“I'm going to get to work on tanning that hide. I wouldn’t be surprised if we didn’t see another warm day. You can use it as a blanket at night too.”

 

“Thank you.”

 

He nodded and walked over to the remains of the direwolf. As he worked, she watched him. He took another gulp of the scotch and handed her the bottle. She smiled and took another long drink.

 

“Are you trying to get me drunk?” she asked playfully but regretted it immediately. It sounded so presumptuous.

 

“Maybe,” he said without taking his eyes off of what he was doing.

 

Sansa couldn’t see his face and didn’t know if he was joking or not, but she was surprised by his answer. She was sure he must be teasing her.

 

“I was just kidding,” she said quietly.

 

He raised his head and met her stare with a neutral expression on his face. “Oh. You don’t want to be drunk?” he asked reaching for the bottle of scotch and taking a gulp before getting back to work.

 

“I'll drink some with you, but I don’t think I have ever been _drunk_ before.”

 

He kept working but gave a huff of laughter. “Well, as easy it would make it to take advantage of you, don't start tonight. I don’t feel like babysitting while you puke all night.”

 

“You want to take advantage of me?”

 

He looked up at her. “Are you offering? The wasteland is a lonely place and I haven't seen anything as pretty as you in years.”

 

“No! I just-”

 

“If I wanted to, I would.” He snatched the bottle from her. “You've had enough of that.”

 

He took a long gulp and let his eyes linger on her a moment longer than was necessary. “Get some sleep. We have a long day tomorrow.”

 

She laid down on a blanket that he had spread over the cave floor. The scotch had made her swim a bit and she was exhausted.

 

She fell asleep to the sounds of the fire and The Hound muttering something about _teasing_.

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

**The Hound**

 

When he woke up the next morning, the girl was snuggled beside him against the cold. The fire had burned down and the cave had become bitter cold. She seemed to be trembling and searching for heat but was hesitant even in her sleep to seek out his body warmth.

 

He rose up off of the hard cave floor and got a couple more of the moldy old books to put them on the fire and stoke the coals. After a few minutes the fire was roaring again and filling the expansive cavern with it's warmth and light.

 

The Hound watched as the girl rolled over closer to the fire and readjusted the thin blanket around her and walked through the tunnel leading to the entrance of the cave. When he began to see the light, his heart sank. It was far too clear and bright. He knew what he was going to be met with before he saw it. Looking out into the wasteland, The Hound saw nothing but endless expanses of a fresh and unmarred snowfall.

 

The nuclear winter was here.

 

The Hound wandered back into the cave and found the girl stirring uncomfortably on the ground. He felt a shiver run down his spine and cursed himself for not preparing better for the impending bitter weather. Even with the fire, the cavernous hollow room was cold.

 

_She had been warm._

 

The Hound laid down on the cold hard rock beside her and tried to close his eyes. It's not like they had anywhere to be anytime soon. His head was clear despite the scotch from the night before but he doubted she would be so lucky. She had been clearly intoxicated last night. He felt her roll over and immediately curl up against his side. She wasn’t used to anything but the cushy luxuries of the Vault and the pre-war capital.

 

_She's going to be a royal pain in the ass._

 

Sharing warmth was a way of survival in the wasteland but he felt himself tense when she pressed her chest into his side and wrap an arm around his chest. It was blessedly warm. He tucked the blanket around her shoulder and around his body. The blanket was too short and pulling it so high around them exposed their feet to the cold air. She curled her legs up and before he knew it one of her knees raised up and curled her slender leg around both of his.

 

When he had found the girl crouched over the trunk in the ruins of the houses outside of Vault 108, he had been intent on raping her and stealing her valuables. He would have delivered her a swift and relatively painless death. She was just a small girl and he wasn’t overly cruel, but  after hearing that she was Robb Stark's lost sister Sansa, he had told himself to keep his hands off and to deliver her safely to Winterfell so that he could collect his money and move on.

 

After only one day, he was finding this harder to accomplish than he had thought.

 

She was something of an enigma in the wastes of the post-war fallout. She didn't belong out here in this world and keeping her safe from the elements, fiends, Walkers and, not to mention, himself was not going to be easy.

 

_Think of the money._

 

He was a mercenary. Sure, there were the overly virtuous mercs who did things without the sole concern of how well it paid, but he wasn't one of them. The money that he would get for delivering Sansa Stark to Winterfell into the hands of her family would have been, to date, the best paying job he had landed. It would set him up in an apartment in any town he wanted and keep him fed and in liquor for the rest of his miserable life.

 

Yet, the only thought that invaded his imagination, was fucking her into the hard stone ground of this cave.

 

He sat up abruptly.

 

_You have been alone too long._

 

“Girl,” he said as he shook her shoulder. She stirred and stretched her aching muscles. It was graceful and almost feline. He couldn’t help but looking away and rolling his eyes.

 

_Fuck! Was the girl doing this on purpose?_

 

“Wake up,” he grunted to her as he wrenched himself from her grip unceremoniously.

 

“Mmm. Oh, Ow!” she moaned.

 

He couldn’t stop the grin that pulled at his hideous lips. “'Ow' what? Your head or your back?”

 

“Uh,” she gasped as she stretched again. “Both.”

 

“It takes some getting used to.”

 

“What does?” She sat up and massaged her neck. She looked like hell and yet she was still a vision.

 

The Hound shrugged his shoulders and mentally shook his head of the thoughts roaming his mind. “Sleeping on the ground,” he said. Suddenly smirking, he added, “And trying to keep up with me on the booze.”

 

She shot him a sarcastic sneer that he would have never suspected to come from her.

 

“You know, the Mentats wouldn’t have given you a hangover. If you want to get fucked up-”

 

“No! I don’t want to...”

 

He was having too much fun antagonizing her. “Getting a little fucked up makes people lose those pesky inhibitions.”

 

“Is that why you did so much Psycho?” Her face was passive with no traces of a challenge. She was asking him a genuine question. She asked too many goddamn questions.

 

“Losing the inhibition to _kill_ is the point of Psycho; not that I needed one,” he sneered into her face. Her eyes went wide and she seemed to stop breathing. At least it shut her up about that. He should have never told her.

 

A moment later, she was back to her chirping. “So where are we going to today?”

 

He took a deep sigh and answered her as he started to gather the things they had scavenged in the cave into their packs. “We need to make a bit of a detour. I need ammo. I'm almost out of .44 mags and I can always use 5.56 NATOs. It wont be far out of the way.”

 

“Is that for your guns?”

 

This was going to be harder than he thought. “Yeah,” he said exasperatedly. “Don't you have anything other than that switchblade?”

 

“I had the water and the apple,” she said hopefully. “Oh, and the bobbypins.”

 

“I meant weapons,” he said with an intentional deadpanned expression. “Do you have a _weapon_ in case something happens to me?”

 

She was notably worried and only shook her head.

 

“Well, we can get you a couple of firearms befitting your size. I'll show you how to use them. Do you have any caps?”

 

“Caps for what?”

 

“Money... we don’t use the pre-war paper shit. Most of it was incinerated. If you find it you can trade it to your brother or someone for something substantial but our money now is in bottlecaps...like coke bottles or beer bottles.”

 

“Are you serious?”

 

“No. I thought it would be fun to fuck with you,” he said as he narrowed his eyes at her. The blush that crept across her cheeks was cute but weird. “Let's go get some fire power, little bird.” God, she was a delicate little thing.

 

He hoped he could keep her in one piece until they got to her brother. She was their problem then. She was nothing... _nothing_.... like that sister of hers.

 

… **.......................................**

 

The day had been boring. There had only been one White Walker wandering around all by itself. The Hound had been so relaxed that he had given the girl his plasma pistol and showed her how to aim and fire.

 

She had been awful and would have never gotten it if it weren’t for him wrapping his fingers around hers and basically pulling the trigger for her.

 

He had a feeling small arms weren’t going to be her strong suit.

 

The girl was clearly fatigued under the weight of her armor by the middle of the day. The Hound was hungry by then anyway so he decided that it would be as good of a time as any to stop and rest. The going had been rough in the snow. It had been deeper than he had thought upon looking out of the cave and had been up to his knees in some spots. He could hardly blame her for being exhausted even with him plowing the way in front of her.

 

“Come on, little bird. We can stop at this armory just ahead,” he encouraged her. “We can sleep and get a hot meal there.”

 

To give the girl her credit, she plowed on his wake in the snow without complaint.

 

They made it to the armory where the guards knew him and admitted them without question. He was on edge here with the Khans but only because he was on edge with everyone.

 

“Drogo,” he greeted to the Khal of the Khans. Khal Drogo was a formidable opponent if he wanted to be one but the Khal and The Hound had always been easy allies. Their bloodthirsty nature had always bonded them easily in their few interactions together. “Could you spare an extra tent for an old dog?”

 

Drogo just laughed at him. “Don't call yourself old, Sandor. It makes me feel old too.”

 

Sandor felt the girls eyes on him as soon as Drogo spouted the words out of his mouth. She had heard his name.

 

“We are old for the wasteland,” Sandor said with a quirk of his eyebrow.

 

“That maybe true. Dany and I would be honored to have you and your conquest share a tent here in our Khalasar.”

 

Drogo looked at Daenerys Targaryen as a conquest...  a fucking Khan looking at a goddamn Targaryen as something that could be tamed and owned. He didn’t know what he had gotten himself into when he had taken Dany as a wife. Any woman accompanying Sandor would automatically be his conquest; even if she was a Stark. Sansa seemed to tense up at the mention.

 

“The honor would be ours,” Sandor conceded. A bed and a hot bath would be worth the subjugation. “So show me the way to the alcohol and the hot bath.” He was never one for excessive flattery.

 

The Khal smirked again. “You haven't changed, Clegane.”

 

_Great, now she knows my last name too._

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

 

 

**Sandor**

 

At a nod of Daenerys' head, the girl was swept up in a flock of Dany's handmaids and ushered away into the mob of fussing women. The girl shot him a worried look and he nodded in encouragement. She gave him a small smile and turned her gaze to one of the women who was twirling a lock of her hair appreciatively.

 

“Your woman is beautiful. What the hell does she see in you?” Drogo asked Sandor with a gruff laugh.

 

Sandor looked back to Drogo and smirked back. “She isn't mine.”

 

“You should do something about that. A woman to warm your bed is the sweetest thing there is,” the Khal said as he pulled Daenerys into him.

 

“We both know that's not quite true, Drogo.”

 

The Khal laughed deeply. “Go drink your fucking booze and take your fucking bath. I'll pick a girl out and send her to your tent before dinner.”

 

“That won't be necessary,” Sandor said waving away his hand at the offer.

 

“I insist, my friend.”

 

“I insist more. Don't do that.”

 

“You like to take them unwillingly? I should have guessed.”

 

_Well, he's not wrong._

 

Once Qotho had shown him to his tent, the man helped him strip off his armor and took his clothes to be washed by one of the Khan women. When he came back, Sandor had submerged himself in the stock tank that was serving as a bathtub. “This water is irradiated, isn’t it?”

 

“Only a little. It's cleaner than most water you will find outside of a city.” The man dug through his pockets. “Here, take a Rad-X,” he said throwing Sandor the bottle containing the radiation blocking pills. “You know, your armor needs to be oiled. I can take it to our leather worker,” he said inspecting the cracked leather pieces as Sandor opened the bottle and popped one of the tiny pills.

 

“Sure,” Sandor said as he sank lower into the tank. He felt his muscles relaxing and a calm settle over him. Qotho left and Sandor was alone with the steam and the thoughts in his head. The thought of getting the girl to Winterfell was a daunting one. She was delicate and not equipped to traverse the dangerous expanses of the wasteland. How she was expecting to make it to Winterfell with only a dull switchblade, Sandor didn't know. She had been lucky that it had been Sandor who had found her. Sure, his intentions had been unfriendly when he had found her picking the lock on the trunk, but when he had found out who she was, he had put aside any unsavory thoughts towards her. Anyone else would have probably slit her throat and raped her corpse without bothering to find out who she was. If he could manage to keep her alive all the way to Winterfell, the reward that Robb had been offering for her safe return would be all he needed to drink himself into a lifelong stupor.

 

Maybe the girl had a point about his drinking.

 

Sandor imagined that the girl was being preened and manicured now by Daenery's handmaids. She was probably enjoying a hot bath of her own right about now. She surely wasn't in need of one as bad as Sandor had been. She had only left her clean and sterile Vault the day before. When he had laid beside her in the cave, she had smelled sweet and clean enough. Her silky hair had smelled like pears when she rested her head against him. His had no doubt not smelled like anything as sweet as pears, but she had run her fingers through the dusty ends anyway. She had gradually moved her fingers deeper and deeper into the lengths of his hair until he had felt a fingertip brush his scalp. The intimate contact had sent a shiver down the back of his neck just as she retracted her hand. Sandor could have fallen asleep with her slight hands petting him.

 

Just the thought had him relaxed and calm. His thoughts wandered back to what she was doing now; to her relaxing in her own bathtub and his thoughts became unsavory again. He was suddenly hyper aware of the heat of the water surrounding his cock and he felt himself stiffen steadily until he was fully erect. He imagined that it was something like the way she would feel like inside. Hot and wet. He tired to shake himself of the images in his head when he heard a small clearing of her throat at the flap of the tent.

 

His eyes flew open and he jerked around so suddenly that a significant amount of water splashed over the sides of the tank.

 

He caught her staring at his naked body in the tub before she looked up at him in the eyes and blushed prettily. She quickly broke the gaze and stared at the floor as she spoke. “I'm sorry to bother you but the Khal asked that I come and get you for dinner.”

 

“Come in and close that damn flap, girl. It's fucking freezing.”Sandor could feel the hair on his arms standing on end.

 

The girl looked alarmed but quickly ducked all the way into the tent. Her scavenged armor and clothing had been taken and replaced by one of Dany's scant dresses. If you could call them dresses. The gauzy dress was flowing over the curves of her body before billowing out around her legs. The only thing keeping her warm was surely the snow white rabbit fur cloak. Her rich auburn hair tumbled in shiny waves over the fur and her creamy skin.

 

Sandor was suddenly aware that he was staring at her and quickly looked back down into his lap and was met with his erection threatening to break the surface of the water.

 

“I'll wait in the dining house for you to finish getting ready,” she said as she turned to leave.

 

“Wait,” Sandor said, suddenly realizing that the soap was across the tent from him. “Hand me that soap before you go.”

 

The girl looked at the bar of soap with a shy look before picking it up and carrying over to him. He didn’t miss the quick look she shot to his swollen cock before she darted her eyes to the floor again.

 

“Here,” she said sweetly.

 

Sandor allowed his hand to wrap around hers and pull her closer to him. Her eyes were wide and twinkling. She fell against the side of the tank and her breath hitched inside her quickly heaving chest.

 

All thoughts of unsavory acts were forgotten.

 

Sandor was going off of pure animalistic instinct. He could practically feel the trepidation radiating off of her. He could see it in her eyes though; she was enjoying it. The sly glances at him where he was exposed were not lost on him.

 

“I might need some help with my back,” he growled into her ear. He felt her smooth clean hair cling to his wet chest.

 

She pulled back, aghast. “I- I'm... Should I?”

 

Sandor was enjoying her discomfort a bit too much and his previous thoughts kept him from restraining himself from being crass. “I would have washed yours, but they didn’t have _me_ call _you_ to dinner.”

 

“What...”

 

“Well, you are probably a lot prettier in a bathtub than I am.” When he looked her in the eyes, he realized that she wasn’t meeting his gaze. She was trying her damnedest to not look at any of his naked skin.

 

“You had a bath?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“I would have been happy to help.” Sandor felt his erection pressing against his stomach again.

 

The girl blushed again and smiled at the ground. “I could help you with your back.”

 

He felt himself twitch. He was too far gone to deny her offer, “The sponge is there,” he said nodding his head over to the table.

 

He watched as her graceful fingers grasped the soap and the sponge. They were tentative but she moved towards him with an easy grace. It was something that he was unaccustomed to in the wasteland. Her beauty and innocence was unknown in these harsh conditions. She lathered the sponge with the soap until it was foamy and moved it to his shoulders when Qotho walked in through the flap of the tent with a cold flourish and a beautiful Khan woman in tow. She was still nowhere close to Sansa though.

 

Sandor wanted to leap naked and dripping out of the tank and strangle him as Sansa dropped the sponge and stood up quickly.

 

“The Khal wanted me choose a beautiful woman to help you bathe,” Qotho said, not realizing he had interrupted something.

 

Sandor snatched the sponge from the water and flung it towards Qotho and the Khan girl. The girl shrieked as a spray of water splashed them.

 

“I _have_ a beautiful woman who _was_ helping me,” Sandor growled, gesturing towards Sansa. She looked like she wanted to melt into the floor of the tent. Her cheeks and chest were blushing violently.

 

_She blushed so easily._

 

Qotho looked between them and seemed to finally register that he had interrupted them. “I am so sorry, man. I didn’t know she was in here.” He turned and shoved the Khan girl out of the tent unceremoniously.

 

“Fucking Qotho,” Sandor cursed when they had left, leaving Sandor and Sansa alone again.

 

She was smiling slightly but stood still beside the tank.

 

“Well, are you going to help or should I have Qotho bring me the Khan chick again?” Sandor rasped to her. The interruption had been inconvenient but Sandor would not allow this chance to slip by.

 

She met his gaze timidly before turning to walk back towards the flap of the tent. Sandor was furious at the cock tease she had pulled on him, only to leave him hanging miserably. He was pissed at Qotho for ruining the moment. He was pissed at the world just then. “Fine. Fuck off. I'll wash my own goddamn back,” he spat to her as he stood up in the tank.

 

She reached down and picked up the sponge he had flung at the intruders. She turned back to face him and his nudity. She looked him in the eyes and ignored the raging hard-on he was rocking. She waved the sponge at him with an eyebrow quirked as if to say _duh_.

 

He felt stupid.

 

“Are you always so hateful?” she said to him.

 

“Pretty much,” he admitted as he sank back down into the hot water.

 

She crossed back over to him and sat down on the stool beside the tank again. She looked at him with a chastising stare.

 

“What?” he said feeling like an infant.

 

“Is that anyway to talk to the beautiful woman who is helping you?”

 

“Look, don't let that shit go to your head. The Khan girl was pretty too.”

 

The smug look faded from Sansa's face and she let her eyes fall back down to the sponge in her hands. She dipped it in the water and lathered it with soap again. She placed a timid hand on his shoulder and began to lightly brush the sponge along the lines of his body. It was slow and thoughtful and the strokes deepened in pressure as she went along. The only sound in the tent was the dripping of water as she dipped the sponge into the hot soapy water and brought it back up to his shoulders. She pushed the sponge around his neck and down to his chest. She got lower and lower as she repeatedly dipped and rubbed down chest. She had made it to his upper abs and the water line when she finally spoke.

 

“Why didn't you want the Khan woman to help you?” she asked shyly.

 

_Has she been thinking about that this whole time?_

 

“You were already in here,” he said keeping his eyes closed.

 

“You called me beautiful.” She had stopped rubbing him with the sponge. “And you're...”

 

“I'm what?”

 

She was blushing again he noticed as he opened his eyes. “You're... excited.”

 

Sandor laughed. “What that?” he said nodding towards his throbbing cock. She looked like she wanted to melt again. “Don't fish for compliments. Of course you are beautiful and I’m sure you know that. The world is full of beautiful people; that's you, and ugly people; that's me. Why wouldn’t I get rock hard as one of the beautiful people bathed me?”

 

She stared at him wide eyed and scandalized. “I didn’t mean to-”

 

“You didn’t have to. Look, if you aren’t going to hop onto it, then go on to the dining house and let me take care of it.”

 

Her eyes teared up and narrowed. She stood suddenly, glaring at him before storming out of the tent leaving only a cold draft in her wake.

 

Sandor wasn’t sure if it was from her icy stare or from her absence or from the frigid outside air but the room was much colder.

 

 

 

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

 

 

**Arya**

 

“Arya!”

 

“Shh!”

 

“Arya!”

 

“SHHH!”

 

_I'm never taking this fat ass hunting again._

 

Once again, Arya turned her back on Hot Pie to zero in on the Walker but it was gone. Arya was cursing Hot Pie for making her lose sight of the feral ghoul. A lot of Arya's success could be attributed to her stealth; the element of surprise was her deadliest weapon. Walkers and people alike had been prey to her ability to be as quiet as a shadow. There had only been one person she couldn't sneak up on. 

 

 _Thankfully, that asshole was dead._

 

Arya pulled Blackhawk, the only gun she ever liked to carry, the one she had taken from him as he lay dying, and searched through the scope for the Walker but came up empty. She hadn't managed to get very close with Hot Pie stomping through the rubble behind her alerting the ghoulish creature of their presence. Now that damn thing could be anywhere. Arya closed the light on her GPS armband sending them into complete darkness. She didn’t want to give off a beacon of light announcing their presence to every White Walker down here. She didn’t need it anyway. The blue shine to the Walkers' eyes would give them away before they knew she was there. 

 

“Arya!” Hot Pie hissed in her ear.

 

“If you don’t stop talking-” 

 

She saw the blue pinpoints in the blackness of the subway station a moment too late. Her words were cut off by Hot Pie's scream. Arya turned her flashlight back on and pulled her obsidian knife. The Walker had Hot Pie by the hair and was dragging him up to stare coldly into his face. Arya didn’t hesitate and drove the knife under the jaw of the rotting soulless creature. It's grasp released Hot Pie instantly and the boy fell into a sobbing heap on the littered platform of the train station. The Walker shrieked and it's face contorted with the only thing like  pain that it could feel anymore. 

 

Arya knew what happened next but she never grew tired of watching it.

 

The creature began to fold in on itself as if it was being wadded up by an invisible fist until it was being crushed into a fine ash. Arya walked over to the pile of ashes and sifted through them.

 

_Well, he had been good for one thing. He taught me how to kill Walkers and told me they carry good stuff sometimes._

 

She pulled a bottle of Rad-X out of the dust and blew it off before she shoved it into her pack. She nudged Hot Pie with the toe of her boot eliciting a squeal. 

 

“Get up, you idiot. Let's get out of here before more show up.”

 

Arya moved quickly and silently through the tunnels of the subway beneath the capital ruins with Hot Pie breathing loudly and stomping even more loudly behind her. 

 

Jaqen was going to have a good laugh about this. He always thought that her friends were morons and he was half right. Gendry wasn't an moron though. Gendry was a good hunting partner when they weren't arguing about something. Only, they were _always_ arguing about one thing or another. Why melee weapons were better than firearms or vice versa. Where they thought they could find the most Walkers. Where they should make camp. What to eat for dinner. Jaqen and Arya had very similar strengths and fought in the same style. On the few occasions that they had been side by side on a hunting trip, they had had an easy partnership. They didn’t pair up often though because they both preferred their solitude and their moral stances were a bit different. They were both wasteland assassins for hire but Arya wouldn't take just any contract. She refused any job whose target wasn't thoroughly evil. Jaqen would take almost anything. He didn’t like to ask questions or get involved in the politics or dramatics. 

 

Arya climbed the steps to subway access and pushed the chainlink gate open. She took a quick look around before judging the area safe. 

 

“Arya, let's go home. Let's go back to Winterfell. This is super dangerous,” Hot Pie huffed behind her. He was out of breath and scared shitless. She should have known that he was full of it when he said that he really wanted to hunt White Walkers with her. 

 

“I'll take you back to town,” she sighed. What a wasted trip.

 

“Is it far?”

 

“We'll be there by tonight if we get going now.” She started walking west without waiting on Hot Pie. She was too aggravated with him to make idle conversation. 

 

This was exactly why she traveled alone. 

 

She hadn’t only been in those tunnels to hunt Walkers. She had been looking for a way through the ruins of the capital to get farther south. The river blocked off access from one side and the rest of the capital was a deadly maze of debris. You could swim the river, but even with a heavy dose of Rad-X, she would still be crawling back to Bran in Winterfell practically glowing with radiation sickness. She hadn’t found anything but some Rad-X and a headache. 

 

… **.........................................**

 

The darkness had swallowed them by the time the towns lights twinkled on the horizon; mingling with the stars over their heads. Hot Pie had been complaining in earnest for the past hour about how tired and hungry and cold he was. Arya was tired and hungry and cold too but she refused to stop for the night when she knew Winterfell was just over the next rise or two. She could have a bath and a hot meal and a drink with Jon if he wasn’t busy. 

 

Outside of the town's gates, a couple of trader caravans were stopping to rest. The armorer had a nice suit of armor that was exactly like hers that was in fairly good condition. Hers was rough and had seen better days so she haggled a trade, giving up her newly acquired Rad-X and some caps. She would be able to repair hers with pieces of the new set.  She had always been good at fixing up her gear with scavenged or spare parts. She wasn't Rickon but she was fairly resourceful.

 

She nodded a greeting to Jory as she walked through the gates, the gleam off the barrel of his sniper rifle was all she could see in the gloom but she knew that he had seen her. He had probably seen her a mile outside of the city. She parted with Hot Pie just inside the walls to go back to her shack and drop off her gear before she headed to get a drink.

 

“I'm really sorry, Arry. I thought I would be up for it.”

 

“It's not for everyone, Hot Pie.”

 

“Come by The Brass Lantern later. I'm going to go get some stew going. I'll give you a bowl on the house.”

 

“Thanks, Hot Pie.”

 

He wandered off down the hill to the center of town with a wide and simple grin on his face. She shook her head wishing her own happiness came so easily and trudged along the south side of the wall towards her shack. She unpacked her satchel and began to remove her armor piece by piece. She would work on repairing it later. She just wanted to change into clean clothes and  go to Osha's. 

 

Osha had been a wildling in the wastes before she had come to Winterfell. Theon had arrested her one day when she was caught stealing from Bran's stores of drugs. He often had junkies and fiends in need of a detox but sudden withdrawal symptoms could be dangerous so he kept a healthy supply of all the major chems. Osha had quickly redeemed herself and shown Jon that she wasn’t a raider anymore and that she could be a functional member of the town. She had opened up a little bar that soon became everyones favorite hang out.

 

Arya took a quick bath in clean water and threw on a clean pair of fatigues and a tank top. She laced her boots and grabbed her side holster and her jacket. She didn’t go anywhere without Blackhawk. Not even around Winterfell. 

 

She walked down the hill to The Brass Lantern. The savory smells of Hot Pie's rabbit stew and fresh bread wafted out of the door and across the outdoor bar. Rodrik, Jory's uncle, and Robb were laughing about something over a steaming bowl of stew. Robb almost choked on a piece of rabbit when he saw Arya. 

 

“That was a short trip.”

 

“Yeah,” she said shrugging her shoulders. Hot Pie came through the door with a heel of hot brown bread and a bowl of stew. “Walker hunting isn't Hot Pie's thing.” She took a bite of the bread and was sure she felt an orgasm threaten to rock her right there. “But the boy can cook.”

 

Hot Pie smiled again as he took Robb's and Rodrik's bowls and spoons. 

 

“Hey, why does she get bread?” Robb protested.

 

“Because she saved my life,” Hot Pie called over his shoulder as he took the dishes into his little restaurant. 

 

“That reminds me,” Robb said as he swiped a bite of Arya's bread. She smacked the back of his hand with her spoon but he just grinned through the wad of bread in his mouth. “Mom wants to see you before you take off again. She worries herself sick over you, you know.”

 

“Alright Robb.”

 

“I'm not lecturing. I'm just saying. Losing one daughter has been hard enough.” The humor in Robb's eyes fizzled out and was replaced with sadness. Robb and Sansa had always been close before she and Arya had gone to the capital with their father.

 

“Yeah, losing the _good_ daughter was bad,” Arya said as she rolled her eyes. 

 

“Don't start,” Robb said through narrowed eyes. “She just doesn’t like you running off for weeks at a time playing with guns and knives. She loves you just as much as she loved Sansa.”

 

“I said alright, alright? I'll go and see her.”

 

Robb seemed pleased enough and paid for his meal before walking off resuming his talk with Rodrik. 

 

“Hey Arya!” Her younger brother Rickon had walked up to join her. He sat in the same seat Robb had just vacated.

 

“Hey Rickon. Got any .44 mags?”

 

Rickon thought for a moment. “Yeah, I do. Guy came in today and traded a bunch for some .50 cals. You running low?”

 

“Yeah, I am.”

 

“Alright, just come by the store before you take off again. I'll give you a good price on them. Did you find anything good in the subway?” He was always interested in any long buried treasure she happened to dig up.

 

“No. I just left yesterday morning.”

 

“Yeah. Hey, I had something I wanted to ask you. I'm writing this book about survival in the wasteland and I wanted to see if you would be interested in helping me research.”

 

“Research how?” Arya said skeptically.

 

“Like surviving injuries and radiation poisoning. How to scavenge for food and parts. Weapon maintenance. Stuff like that. I'll pay you of course. I can give you caps or I can give you some grenades to test.” Arya's interest peaked there and she looked at him with new interest, her stew almost forgotten. “I've been working on them for a while and if they work the way they should, they could clear a room of White Walkers.”

 

“How the hell did you come up with that?”

 

“They contain a pulse emitter, kinda like the energy weapons but in grenade form.”

 

“I'll come by tomorrow and you can show me these magic grenades.”

 

“Ok. Take it easy. Don't drink all of Osha's booze.” Rickon jumped off the stool and bounced away. He was a dorky and socially awkward little thing but if he had invented a grenade that could kill all White Walkers in the immediate area, he may have become her favorite brother. 

 

Arya sucked down the broth of her delicious stew and thanked Hot Pie. She wandered her way to Osha's and felt a breeze of hot air hit her face as she walked through the door. The dimly lit bar felt like home as the din of conversations and the static of the radio met her ears. She heard Theon before she saw him as he laughed loudly at something Osha was saying. He slapped a hand down on the bar and toppled his drink. He had clearly been here a while. 

 

“Arya, baby!” he said as he crossed the room to hug her. “That was a quick trip to the capital.” They walked in a one armed embrace to the bar where Osha was wiping up the spilled whiskey.

 

“You be careful in them tunnels, girl,” Osha chided. “I've seen my share of Walkers. Nasty things.”

 

Arya nodded. She knew it was dangerous.

 

“Want a whiskey? Osha, two more!” Theon said without waiting for her answer. He knew her answer.

 

“Ain't you had enough, Greyjoy?”

 

“No such thing!” Theon was drunk but he was still functioning. Osha poured two more glasses of whiskey and move down the bar to get Roose Bolton and one of the Karstark guys a refill. Arya nodded to Roose and the Karstark, though she couldn’t remember his name. Roose lifted a finger in greeting and resumed his conversation with Rikard's son.

 

“Find anything good in the subways?” Theon asked as he fiddled with the radio on the bartop. Three Dog could barely be heard over the intermittent static.

 

“No time to scavenge anything. I didn’t even get anywhere I've haven't been before.”

 

“I told you not to take Hot Pie,” he said as he tried to adjust the antennas. He only made the static worse.

 

“You did not, Theon,” Arya said as Osha came back to smack Theon's hand and fix the antennas back.

 

Theon sat back down and sipped his beverage. “Well, I thought it. I _meant_ to tell you not to take Hot Pie.”

 

Arya scoffed. “Has no one fixed the dish for Three Dog yet?”

 

“No. Who would? He's not paying them!” Bronn said as he appeared at Arya's shoulder. 

 

“Don't you ever do something simply because it is the right thing to do?” Arya said over her shoulder.

 

“No,” he said simply with a look on his face as if that should be obvious. “And I don’t see you volunteering, girl.”

 

She gulped her remaining whiskey and got up to leave. “Well, maybe I will.”

 

Bronn raised his glass to her with a smile. “We would appreciate it. Static gets old.”

 

She gave him and Theon a quick salute as she turned and walked back out into the cold night. 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

 

 

**Sansa**

 

When Sandor finally showed up in the dining house, Sansa felt a fresh wave of embarrassment. The thought of this man having just pleasured himself at the thought of her was mortifying. She had looked up as he had entered and refused to look him in the eye. He took his seat between Sansa and the Khal and quickly tucked into his food as if nothing had happened.

 

_Maybe it was nothing to him._

 

“What's wrong with your food, little bird?” he said through a mouthful of meat. “You have barely touched it.”

 

“I'm not hungry,” she said shortly without looking up at him.

 

Sandor laughed. “You can't tell me you are still ticked off about the thing in the tent...” he said privately into her ear.

 

Sansa lifted her head abruptly trying to pierce his cocky attitude with the anger in her eyes. “You are foul, do you know that?”

 

He lowered his face closer to hers until there was barely a breath between them. The amusement had left his face to be replaced by an anger of his own. “Would you like to find Winterfell by yourself and see how _foul_ the wastes can really be? You think a monster asking you to hop onto a hard cock would be the worst of your problems?”

 

Sansa held her resolve. “Why do you have to be so vulgar?”

 

Sandor sat back up with the humor back on his face and began to saw at the slab of meat on his plate. “I don’t know. I was horny. It seemed like a good idea at the time.” Sandor looked back down at her through the corners of his eyes. “I was hoping you would take me up on it,” he said waggling his eyebrows at her.

 

Sansa couldn’t help the smile coming across her face.

 

Sandor nudged her with his elbow. “So does that smile mean you have changed your mind? We can leave right now. I’m not _that_ hungry.”

 

“You are incorrigible.”

 

“No, I just still have a hard on that could cut my steak.”

 

“Does it not embarrass you to talk like that?” she asked astounded.

 

“Like what?” he said as he took another bite of his steak.

 

She gaped at him as he masticated his bite with unadulterated abandon. She felt a huff of laughter escape her. “Never mind.”

 

_Was every man in the wasteland this vile?_

 

“Hey, are you going to eat that?” Sandor said interrupting her thoughts.

 

“Knock yourself out,” she said pushing her plate towards him.

 

The rest of the meal passed with easy conversations between Sansa and Daenerys as they drank their way through a couple of bottles of Dany's good wine. It was a dark red that was sweet and fruity and left a pretty stain on Dany's lips. Sansa wondered if it was giving herself a berry kissed pout.

 

_Would Sandor like that?_

 

She jerked at the sudden thought that had occurred to her and wondered why she cared. Sandor didn’t seem to notice her discomfort. He and Khal Drogo sipped scotch and laughed loudly and frequently, paying the conversation between her and Dany seemingly no attention.

 

Dany noticed though. “Sansa, are you ok honey?”

 

Sansa snapped out of her silent reverie and smiled effortlessly. “I'm fine. I think I need to go to bed though. I-”

 

The large hand on her upper thigh interrupted her before she could say that she had had too much to drink and wanted to go to sleep. She tensed and turned to see Sandor smiling over her lap at Dany. “We are both exhausted and a soft bed sounds more and more tempting the longer I think about it.”

 

Sansa's heart was in her stomach. What was he expecting?

 

The Khal gave Sandor's shoulder a drunken punch. “Tempting for many reasons. Dany, I think its about time we make our way to our own tent.”

 

Dany smiled adoringly to Drogo and got up to walk out of the dining house with him. Sandor took Sansa's hand and smiled at her. “Come on, little bird. Let's get you to your nest.”

 

Sansa could feel the wine going to her head and swayed a bit when she was on her feet but Sandor steadied her and helped her to their tent. By the time they had made it through the flaps and into the warm cozy tent, Sansa felt significantly drunk. Her stomach was churning and threatening to spill it's contents.

 

She stumbled again and would have gone face first into the fire when Sandor snatched her arm and spun her into him. “Woah, shit!” he exclaimed as he whirled her into his chest. “I can tell you all about how much that hurts. We don’t want a pretty thing like you looking like me.”

 

“Is that what happened to your face?” Sansa would have never dreamed of asking such a question but the alcohol had made her speech filter disappear.

 

_If he is allowed to be so crass then so are you._

 

“Yeah, it is. And it hurts like hell. Lets get you in bed.”

 

“ _That_ came from falling into a fire?”

 

“I didn't fall. Let me go get one of Dany's handmaids for you. You can't sleep in that dress.”

 

Sansa scoffed. “I don’t need one of those girls to help me into my clothes. I am a big girl; I can change myself.”

 

“You almost tripped into the fire, girl.”

 

“That's what you think I am, don’t you? A stupid, spoiled little girl who can't even change her own clothes.” Sansa didn’t know why it bothered her so much what he thought but right now she felt the tears stinging her eyes for _some_ reason. This felt like the reason.

 

“What?” Sandor looked at her bewildered. “I never said that.”

 

“Yes you did. You said, 'Where are your mommy and daddy, little girl?' the first time I met you. _Little girl!”_ What had gotten into her, she couldn’t say.

 

“I didn't even know you! You looked like a little girl!”

 

Sansa gasped. “Then get out while this _little girl_ changes for bed,” she said with as much venom in her voice that she could muster. “Nothing you would be interested in seeing,” she said as she shoved at his chest with both of her hands.

 

He didn’t move except to grab her by her wrists firmly. He pulled her tear streaked face up to meet his own. “Quit throwing a tantrum before I have to bend you over my knee and spank you.” He threw her hands back down as Sansa stared at him horrified. He turned and stormed out of the tent without another word.

 

Sansa's head was spinning. She didn’t know if it was from the confusion of what had just happened or if it was from the wine. Why had she gotten so worked up?

 

_Because he looks at you like a stupid little girl._

 

But grown men didn't usually become aroused by silly little girls.

 

Without allowing herself to consciously think about it, the images of him in the bath came to her. He had been fully erect. She hadn’t been able to keep herself from looking. His body had been so interesting to look at. There were different kinds of scars all over him. The burns on his face had made it down his neck and over his shoulder. There were four puncture wounds that she could only assume were old bullet wounds on his back and there were several slash marks along his arms and his chest. Maybe from a knife or some wild animal. His muscles had rippled as he moved under the taut leathery skin covering them. When she had been bathing him, she hadn’t been able to stop herself from placing a hand on his bare shoulder to feel the hot skin there. There had been one of the puncture wounds there and she had wanted to feel the wrinkled indented skin. It felt thinner than the tough but surprisingly smooth skin around it.

 

Sansa sat on the bed beside the simple pants and shirt they had found in the cave. They had been cleaned and they no longer smelled dusty and decayed. They smelled like something evergreen now. Sansa removed her cloak and undid the clasp of the halter dress Dany had let her borrow. The fabric fell to her waist and left her breast bare. Even with the fire in the middle of the tent, her nipples hardened at the exposure.

 

_Well, you are probably a lot prettier in a bathtub than I am._

 

Sansa stood and let the dress slip all the way down her legs to pool into a azure puddle around her feet. The only thing Sansa had on was a pair of thin sheer panties. The warm air in the tent felt good against her bare skin and Sansa laid down on the lush furs of the bed without bothering to dress.

 

_I would have been happy to help._

 

Sansa's head was floating and her thoughts drifted to what it would have been like for _him_ to bathe _her_. She closed her eyes and imagined as the warm water flowed over her shoulders and down her chest as he ran the course sponge along her delicate collarbones.

 

Sansa ran an exploring hand along one breast where she felt her nipple hard and sensitive. She gave it an experimental pinch and was encouraged by the rush of heat and moisture that flooded between her legs.

 

She imagined as Sandor dipped the sponge between her breasts, letting his arm graze her erect nipple. In her fantasies and in the real world, Sansa gasped and arched her back.

 

In the tent, Sansa snaked her arm down to the hot pulse point between her legs that was throbbing desperately to be touched. She slipped her fingers under the band of her panties and felt along the slick folds of her most sensitive area. She was wet and wanting to be probed farther so Sansa slipped a finger inside of herself.

 

In her fantasies, it was Sandor who had abandoned the sponge and was rubbing her skin with his rough bare hands, the soap making her skin slippery. It was his hand that had gone beneath the surface of the water to tease her slit before pushing a large finger into her quivering body. She arched her back further, forcing her body lower onto his finger. He massaged the inside walls of her sex making her moan his name.

 

_Sandor...._

 

“What is it, little-”

 

Sansa's eyes flew open and her hand froze still dripping to the knuckle inside of her. Sandor was standing inside the flap of the tent with a wide-eyed astounded look on his face. His eyes licked every inch of her exposed body and lingered on her hand still beneath her panties before he looked into her eyes. She felt the heat of her blush run over her entire body or was that excitement?

 

She pulled her hand out of her panties, her fingers still glistening with her juices. He seemed rooted to the spot, unable to look away. His eyes still staring at her wet hand. The room smelled musky like her fingers.

 

He cleared his throat. “I thought you were calling for me.”

 

“I didn’t say anything,” she said as she regained her senses and pulling a fur over her breasts.

 

“Yes, you did,” he said with a smile creeping over his face. “You said 'Sandor.'

 

Sansa's blush deepened. She refused to believe that she had actually said his name out loud. She thought of her daydream and dropped her eyes away from his.

 

“I was waiting outside of the tent for you to finish getting dressed. No wonder it was taking you so long,” his eyes wouldn’t stop shifting from her face to the juncture of her thighs. “You didn’t need a hand did you?”

 

Sansa felt her breathing stop. “Get out!”

 

Sandor narrowed his eyes but didn’t leave. In fact, he took slow languid steps closer and closer to her. Sansa shifted her body into a ball under the furs that weren’t trapped under her body as he leaned down, resting his weight on his knuckles on either side of her head. Her heart was racing and she started to feel the throb between her legs again. She found herself unable to look away from his intense stare.

 

“Fine,” he growled low into her face. “I'll get out if that's what you really want but first you have to tell me why you said my name.”

 

Sansa's chest heaved  as she felt pinned beneath his lustful gaze.

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Sandor**

 

He had almost ignored her when he heard her call for him but she had sounded breathless and maybe she was in need of something. He was glad that he hadn’t ignored her. When he pushed back the flap of the tent he had found her naked except for a pair of panties that were hiding very little. The fabric was almost completely see through and he could see she had her fingers buried up to the knuckle in her soaking pussy. She was clearly in need of a good fucking.

 

His mouth had immediately begun to water and his cock had hardened on sight.

 

She had been masturbating and called out his name. The urge to rip off her stupid panties with his teeth was damn near overwhelming. He was amazed that she wasn't pinned beneath him moaning his name in earnest now.

 

_You have to tell me why you said my name._

 

Well, she hadn’t. She had blushed violently and started crying. She had told him to leave.

 

He couldn't understand why she had been so obviously mortified. That had been the single most sexy thing he had ever laid eyes on.

 

Her creamy white thighs splayed open. Her long slender fingers moving in and out of her bright pink lips. The small patch of red curls beneath her hand. Her pink nipples pointing up in excitement.

 

He would take that beautiful image to his grave.

 

He was going to have to jack off again tonight or he was really going to have to rape her.  He knew why she had said his name. She was thinking about his hard dick while she gave him a bath or something along those lines.

 

_Not so foul anymore, apparently._

 

He was a bit surprised that she was fantasizing about him at all. It wasn't as if he was attractive with the twisted scars covering half of his face. He might have been handsome if not for those. He would have taken her for one of those girls that went after the pretty boys.

 

Sandor was far from pretty.

 

He hadn't been teasing her when he offered her another hand. He would have loved nothing more than to be the one with his fingers deep in her hot and snug cunt.

 

He wandered back to the tent and found her dressed and snuggled up under the furs. She looked up at him as he entered the tent and blushed again. Her eyes were still rimmed red from the crying. He really didn’t see what the big deal was. He had no idea why she would be fingering herself to thoughts of him and then deny him when he offered to help.

 

“Are you over this whole masturbating to me thing? I want to go to sleep.” he said bitterly. If she would just let him fuck her like they both obviously wanted....

 

“Just leave me alone,” she moaned as she rolled over.

 

“Whatever. You don’t see me crying about it.”

 

“I didn’t walk in on you!” she said turning on him suddenly and viciously.

 

“Well, would you like to watch me jack off? Just to even the field. I can guarantee that I wont cry about it afterwards!”

 

“It's embarrassing, ok?!”

 

“I don’t know why! That was fucking hot. Why do you think I was offering to help? I didn't turn away disgusted about you moaning my name, did I?”

 

She groaned and rolled over and hid beneath the covers. He came and sat on the edge of the bed and pulled the furs back. “Were you really thinking about me? I thought about you earlier.” He said with a mischievous grin.

 

She covered her face with her hands and sighed deeply. “Yeah, I was. Are you happy now?”

 

“Extremely. I'm pretty turned on too.”

 

Sansa looked at him through her fingers and laughed. “Just shoot me.”

 

“Can't do that, little bird. Your brother wants you alive. Plus, I’m not into necrophilia.”

 

“What is that?”

 

“It's when people get off from having sex with dead bodies.”

 

“Ew! Are you serious?”

 

“Yeah. I'd want you just as hot and wet as you were a little bit ago. Or are you still wet?”

 

She stared at him wide-eyed and shocked before she actually smiled and laughed. “You are terrible.”

 

“Whatever. I'm not the one teasing the shit out of dangerous murderers. You are lucky I'm so broke.”

 

“Thanks,” she said sarcastically as she rolled over to face him. “And I wasn't teasing you.”

 

“Yeah, say that to my dick.” He bent over and unlaced his boots. He unbuckled his pants and shrugged out of them leaving him in his boxer-briefs and his t-shirt. He shucked the shirt off and got into the large bed and under the furs laughing at the look on her face. She had been staring again at his erection. “Don't look so scandalized. I hate sleeping in my clothes when I have a proper bed. I don’t see how you are doing it. You've seen me naked anyway,” he said crossing his arms behind his head and closing his eyes.

 

“Are you always... aroused?” 

 

Sandor laughed. “Hey, it's going to be hard to forget what I saw.”

 

Sansa blushed anew and looked away.

 

“I'm sorry,” she murmured softly. “I wasn't trying to tease you.”

 

“Just go to sleep, little bird,” he said, his eyes still shut.

 

As if she hadn't been evil enough all night, the girl sighed deeply and stretched her back into one of those long feline stretches. He felt like he had been electrocuted when her ass bumped up against his hip.

 

“Watch it, girl,” he almost growled.

 

“I promise I didn’t mean to do that,” she said earnestly as she rolled onto her back.

 

Sandor rolled onto his side and propped himself up halfway on top of her. His cock was pressing into her thigh. “Oops. I really didn’t mean to do that,” he said sarcastically as he ground his hips against her. The friction was somewhat relieving but the whimper that escaped her was much more satisfying. Her chest heaved with panicked breaths and her pupils were dilated with fear. Just underneath the surface, though, was her excitement and her own arousal. Her lips had parted and she was panting as she stared at his twisted mouth. She probably didn’t even realize she had licked her bottom lip. They were still stained a pretty deep red from the wine she had been drinking earlier.

 

He should have known the moment he saw her fingering herself and moaning his name that this was going to happen.

 

He dipped his head and tasted her berry red lips with his tongue. She still tasted like the fine wine she had been drinking all night. She gasped and stole the air from his mouth but was quickly kissing him back hesitantly.

 

_Am I dreaming?_

 

He bit at her bottom lip and tugged gently as he broke the kiss. Her moan was all of the encouragement he needed.

 

The next few moments were a blur. She arched her back into him. He was nibbling at the tender flesh on her neck. She was running her fingers through his hair. He was fumbling her out of her clothes. She moaned his name as he took one of her rosy nipples into his mouth and sucked.

 

He couldn’t wait any longer. He had to feel what was underneath

those fucking panties.

 

She started to shuck out of them but he was too impatient. He ripped them off as she gasped and wrapped her legs around his waist. He snaked a hand down between their bodies and felt for the moist heat. He was shocked to find her so soaked that her arousal was dripping down between her perfect ass cheeks. He thought he was going to come in his underwear when she arched her back and moaned loudly as he ran his finger from her soaking cunt to her slick asshole.

 

He drove a long finger into her pussy with no more pretense and hooked it up inside of her to tickle her into the beginning of her climax.

 

It didn’t take her long.

 

He felt the muscles constrict around his finger as she started to peak. Her cries of ecstasy muffled by the tent. She was bucking her hips up to push his finger deeper when he pulled his finger out of her and sucked the tangy juices off. She tasted better than he could have imagined.

 

“Is that what you were thinking about?” he growled softly into her hair as he pushed his entire length inside of her.

 

“Yes!” she cried as he began to slowly pull back out. “More. Please.”

 

She was begging him. Well, she asked for it.

 

He let go of the reigns and pushed his way back into her savagely. She was tighter than he had ever felt before and it wasn't long before the sight of her bouncing nipples and tight cunt were pulling his own orgasm from him. Her face had contorted into an almost pained expression from the pleasure that was engulfing her as he felt her come with a rush of her own juices that threatened to send him over the edge.

 

He pulled out of her as he felt the hot come drip over his hand and onto her heaving tummy as she continued to ride out her orgasm. Her legs were shaking and he was breathing deeply. He collapsed beside her and felt her wrap her arms around him and press her body into his. He felt the sticky sperm on her stomach but he didn’t care as they lay still to let their racing hearts slow down. He was sweaty from the exertion and she was flushed and dewy too.

 

“We are going to need another bath,” he said as his breathing slowed.

 

She laughed and blushed prettily. “You could help me wash my back,” she said as she smiled sweetly up at him from where she lay against his chest.

 

 

 

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

 

**Arya**

 

The day after Arya and Hot Pie got back into Winterfell, Arya visited her mother for her monthly scolding.

 

“Arya, the wastes are no place for you to be running around.”

 

“Jon and Theon get to go out of the city walls.” Not that that was a very valid argument. Her mother was not overly fond of Jon or Theon. She was bitter about Jon's existence even though they had long ago found out about his true paternal line and she had always thought Theon was a bad influence on Robb.

 

“Jon and Theon are grown men,” explained Catelyn placatingly.

 

“And I’m a grown woman. I'm nineteen!” She hated when her mother talked down to her.

 

“Yes and you _are_ a woman! Women should not be out selling their services in the wastes!”

 

“You make me sound like a prostitute!”

 

Her mother sighed heavily. “I just think it's time you should start acting like a lady.”

 

Arya nodded. “Yeah, I'm sure it's a daily disappointment that I’m not Sansa.” She knew it sounded petulant and that it was harsh.

 

The look on her mother's face couldn’t have been more pained than if she had been stabbed. Arya had never used her missing sister as ammunition against her mother. They had had this same fight over and over and neither had ever brought up Sansa.

 

“This has nothing to do with your sister,” Catelyn whispered.

 

Arya wasn’t so sure about that. “Ok mom.” She felt bad for the low blowing comment. This conversation was over. “Look, I need to go see Rickon about some work. I said I would help with his book. I'll see you when I get back.”

 

Catelyn nodded solemnly. She left her mother standing in the kitchen of the largest shack in Winterfell.

 

At least she was safe here with Robb.

 

When Arya left her mother's house, she headed straight to Rickon's supply store. She was hoping to get her hands on those .44 magnums before anyone else did. Not that many people could afford them or had a .44 revolver or a lever action rifle to use them in.

 

Except for Robb.

 

He was her biggest competition in Winterfell for the coveted .44 magnum hollow points. He had a lever action rifle that shot .44's. It was sweet and Arya had been begging him for it. It wasn’t as if he ever used it. Jon and Theon handled most of his dirty work; not because he couldn't but because Jon and Theon would never have let him.

 

When she got to Rickon's Supply, it was still too early. The store was closed. She wandered down to The Brass Lantern hoping that Hot Pie had started making breakfast. Her olfactory senses were assaulted with the smell of fresh bread and bacon grease.

 

“Morning,” she said groggily.

 

“Hey Arry!” He was way too happy for this time of day. The whiskey that she had consumed in her shack after she had left Osha's had caught up with her this morning.

 

“Whatcha got today?”

 

“Brown bread, bacon and coffee.”

 

Her stomach roiled, but she needed something to soak up the alcohol. “Hit me with your best shit.”

 

Hot Pie gave her a plate of the fresh breakfast on the house and she greedily gobbled it up without even tasting it. When she meandered back up to Rickon's shop she found it open.

 

“Welc-” he stopped as he looked up from the tinkering he was doing on a strange looking grenade. “Oh, hey Arya!”

 

“Got those .44 cals?”

 

“Sure! I got hollow points too if you want. Robb had plenty.”

 

“Gimme anything you got.” Arya hated to think of the stock pile of ordinance in Robb's shack. It was probably locked up in the cabinet right next to his bizarre pre-war bobblehead collection.

 

“You going back out into the capital?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“I saved them for you,” he said pulling the explosive bullets out from under the counter.

 

“Sweet!” She tried to give him her caps but he pushed them back to her. “So what is this book research thing?” she said knowingly.

 

Rickon shrugged as if it was no big deal.

 

She knew better. “What?”

 

“There is a minefield....”

 

“And you want some of the mines, right?”

 

Rickon laughed. “Yeah.”

 

“Ok... how many?”

 

“I only need about six....” he said hesitantly. “I told you it's for my book!”

 

“Six!” she exclaimed. “How am I supposed to disarm six mines without getting blown up?” She had disarmed landmines before but six was pushing her luck. “Fine, six landmines it is. I'll get them to you next week. As long as you give me those grenades.” She was anxious to try one out.

 

“Done deal!” Rickon said with a bit too much enthusiasm. “Oh and while you are out, take notes of how you scavenge stuff, like food and medical supplies. Shit like that.”

 

Arya laughed and left Rickon's Supply. She still hadn’t seen Jon so she went to his house and knocked. He didn’t answer after a few minutes so Arya headed back to her house the long way, hoping to run into him.

 

She and Jon had always been super close. He had been raised with all of them thinking that he was their half brother; her father's bastard. After the war, they had learned from Jon's aunt, Daenerys Targaryen, that he wasn't the illegitimate child of Ned's. He was Ned's sister's, Lyana, and Rheagar Targaryen's son. Her father had brought him to Winterfell as a baby after Jon's parents died to protect him. Ned had lied to everyone and told them that it was his bastard. Since everyone had wanted Rheagar's head on a spike, they probably wouldn’t be too thrilled about his son.

 

Maybe that was why her mother still didn't love Jon too much. Ned had disgraced her, claiming Jon as a bastard from an affair, to protect him.

 

Jon had always held a special place in Arya's heart though. When they were growing up, Robb and Theon would tease her about being a boy. She had never liked all of that girly shit that Sansa liked. Arya had wanted to tag along with her brothers and get hurt and dirty. Jon was the only one that had let her. After the war, he had encouraged her to be tough. He had taught her about knives and guns and hunting and skinning. He loved her for who she was when no one else really had.

 

Except for her father.

 

By the time Arya got back to her shack, she was almost in tears. To think about her father and Sansa was still painful. They had been missing for years and were probably lost to the harsh conditions of the wasteland forever.

 

Sansa had always been a pain in the ass, but she was still her sister.

 

Arya moved around her little home packing up her things in a rucksack. She liked to travel light but there were certain things that could mean life or death. After inspecting and replenishing her first aid kit, she tossed it in along with a pocket knife, some bobbypins, some water purifying tablets that Bran had developed for her, flint, dry socks and extra ammunition. Food could always be found in the wastes if you knew how to look for it.

 

She dressed in her warmest clothes and methodically pieced together her armor. She strapped her large combat knife to her thigh and situated her side holster with Blackhawk under her arm. She threw the pack over one shoulder and clasped her white wolfskin cloak over it. She could almost disappear in the snow when she was wearing it.

 

When she stepped back outside, it was snowing again. She pulled up the hood of the cloak and set off towards the gates.

 

As she got closer, she could see someone else walking through the snow. The hooded figure waved to Jory and walked through the gates. Arya slipped through before they were closed and saluted Jory for herself. He flicked the brim of his hat back to her and she followed the mysterious figure as they followed along the walls of Winterfell to the west. The snow was muffling her footsteps and her cloak helped keep her hidden in the dense snowfall. She recognized the casual roll to the gait of the figure. Cockiness like that was hard to find outside of Theon. As she followed, she noticed him approach two other figures waiting at the southwest corner of the town's walls. One she made as Roose Bolton but the other was unfamiliar.

 

She couldn't get close enough to hear what they were saying to each other but their body language suggested that it was something they were trying to keep to themselves. Why else would they have met outside of the town's gates in a snowstorm? Arya wondered what Theon and Roose would be up to with this stranger. It seemed suspicious but she had grown up with Theon and she had known Roose her whole life. It was surely something benign and she was just being paranoid.

 

Arya shook her head and turned to go back along the wall the way she came before they saw her spying on them. She needed to go either east to the capital of to the north to the minefield Rickon had told her about anyway. When she got back to the gate, she kept going east and headed towards the river and to the capital. The wind stung her eyes but her her wolf fur cloak kept her fairly warm underneath. She had wrapped her white woolen scarf around her mouth, nose and ears to keep them from getting too cold. Plus, it covered her dark brown hair and kept her even more well hidden.

 

She was confident that the dark figure walking towards her in the haze of snow hadn’t seen her yet.

 

She ducked down quickly beside some lumps that she assumed were snow covered rocks by the river and waited as the figure came closer and closer. She pulled her knife out of it's sheath in one hand and gripped at the pistol under her arm with the other. Strangers out in the wasteland were always to be automatically mistrusted. As the figure passed her, she still couldn’t see who it was under the hood and the furs but she recognized the giant white direwolf by his side.

 

She hadn’t seen Ghost just like they hadn’t seen her.

 

“Jon!” she said jumping up from her spot by the river and running over to them. He hadn’t heard her through the white noise of the snowstorm. “Jon!” she called louder. Ghost heard her that time and turned quickly. He recognized her and ran to her happily. Jon turned and started to walk over to where Arya and Ghost were having a spitty reunion.

 

“Arya, what the hell are you doing out in this?”

 

“Going to the capital,” she said still ruffling Ghost's warm fur.

 

“Well, be careful. Did you just leave Winterfell?”

 

“Yeah,”

 

“Are you picking up any weird radio signals on your GPS?”

 

Arya pushed the button and flicked around. Nothing but static.

 

“No, but the snowstorm won't even let me pick up GNR and Three Dog. Why?”

 

Jon shook his head. “Robb and I have just been picking up some radio transmissions that are making us nervous. I went to GNR to ask if Three Dog has heard anything.”

 

“What kind of radio transmissions?”

 

“Don't tell Robb I told you. For that matter, don't tell _anyone_ that I told you this but it sounds like someone has been stockpiling mini-nukes.”

 

“And you don't know where the radio waves are coming from?”

 

“Nope.”

 

“Shit.”

 

“Yeah. Winterfell could potentially be a bulls-eye for anyone wanting to use them. The capital has already been leveled.”

 

“I was on my way to GNR. I'll keep my ears open,” Arya offered.

 

“Why are you going to GNR?”

 

“I was going to fix the towers for Three Dog.”

 

“Oh hell, don't let Bronn talk you into that suicide mission just because he's bored with Theon pounding on the radio at Osha's.”  It was scary how well he knew them.

 

Arya laughed. “I'm really not doing it for that. The Project Purity is a good idea and if they could get more support then I think it could really work. The wasteland needs clean water.”

 

“So Bran put you up to this?”

 

“No, I didn’t even see him while I was there. I didn't stay long.” Bran would have talked her ear off for hours about Project Purity that he was involved in. After all of the nuclear bombing, clean water that wouldn't set you glowing from radiation poisoning, was almost impossible to come by. Winterfell and the major towns had small purification systems that, when monitored and rationed, could provide clean water to the residents of the town but there were so many smaller places out in the wasteland that didn’t have access to clean water. The infant mortality rate was alarming. Project Purity aimed to bring clean water to the inhabitants of the post-fallout wasteland. That's why Bran made the purification tablets but they were very tricky and very expensive to make. The people that needed them the most couldn’t afford to pay the price he was required to ask. He would have given them away but the materials were so costly.

 

“You never stay long,” Jon said smiling at her and pulling her in for a hug.

 

“Be careful and watch out for Walkers.”

 

“I know.”

 

“Come on Ghost,” he called as he started back towards Winterfell.

 

Ghost padded after him and they disappeared into the snow.

 

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

 

**Sandor**

 

It had been far too long since he had had a woman. He had come way too fast but to his utter astonishment, she had too. He had managed to please her into an intense orgasm. He thought about her legs trembling against his sides.

 

_That was a lot better than raping people._

 

Sandor dreamed that night as she lay curled up against him, of the stroke of good luck he had had. Not only was he going to be able to claim the reward her brother was offering but he had gotten to fuck her too. And willingly.

 

_I hope she lets me do it again..._

 

She was a beautiful little creature. She was certainly the prettiest girl he had ever fucked before, willingly or not. He couldn’t decide what had compelled her to let him have sex with her. She had that disenchantment of him rescuing her and helping her so maybe it was just gratitude. He refused to believe that it was actual sexual attraction. Maybe she was just kinda slutty and had let all of the guys in the Vault fuck her. Either way, he had brutally pounded her into the soft bed of their tent and that was good enough for him.

 

When he woke the next morning, he woke up to a painfully hardened cock and her tight ass backed up against him. She was still asleep. They had fallen asleep naked and without taking another bath. He figured now was as good of a time as any to test the waters.

 

He rolled over onto his side and angled his dick to enter her from behind. He looked down and saw that her legs were curled up high enough to allow her pretty pink lips to peek from between her thighs. He took himself in his hand and experimentally ran the tip of his cock around her entrance in tight little circles. She moaned appreciatively in her sleep and her breathing increased. He felt her getting wet as he continued to swirl her slick moisture around the head of his cock. He felt himself leaking his own juices with excitement at her encouragement. With her sex now dripping down her thigh, he slipped his cock between her folds and pushed his way slowly into her, not daring to go past the head. She was tighter with her legs closed and the constricting pressure was almost painful. He let his head fall back and a groan escape his wide open mouth. He couldn’t help but push into her just a little more. She moaned again and arched her back slightly as she was woken up by the sudden intrusion.

 

“What-” she started to ask, apparently confused. He reached a large hand around and clapped it over her mouth before she could protest or cry out.

 

It's not like he was going to stop now.

 

Her eyes went wide as he shoved himself all the way into her. She whimpered into his hand and squeezed her eyes closed tight. She reached a hand up to grip the arm that he had snaked around her chest to bring her closer to him. She was digging in with her nails. His girth was hurting her. He looked down to where he was forcefully joining their bodies and felt a rush of heat surge down his shaft as he saw how she was stretched around his cock.

 

She hitched her top leg higher and pushed out her ass further to allow him better access as he pulled out slowly. He reveled in the sight of his engorged member pulling at the thin flesh of her pussy as he drew out of her wet and almost dripping.

 

She moaned into his hand as he pushed back into her and setting a slow steady rhythm. She relaxed and she seemed to be enjoying it.

 

“Oh, you like that, do you?”

 

She shook her head and started to meet each one of his thrusts by backing up against his hips. He stopped and enjoyed as she rocked back and forth trying to meet the base of his shaft. She gripped the bed for better purchase but still couldn’t quite back all the way into him. She turned her head, mumbled into his hand and gave her ass a little wiggle.

 

She was begging again.

 

Sandor took his hand away from her mouth and flipped her onto her stomach without pulling out of her. He pressed her forcefully into the bed and spread her legs wider. He started to thrust again and was met with an even tighter fit. She gasped and gripped the furs of the bed until her knuckles were white. She bit her bottom lip and squeezed her eyes shut.

 

“Right there!” she pleaded.

 

Sandor sped up his rhythm until he was panting and she was almost crying. He felt his orgasm coming on but wanted to hold back.

 

He wanted to please her. The look on her face when she came was a beautiful thing.

 

Resting his weight on one hand, he reached between her and the bed and felt for her clit. She gasped again and stuck her ass up into the air when he reached it and began making slow wet circles on top of it.

 

“Oh my god, Sandor!”

 

“I want to see you come again.”

 

“I'm close.”

 

He was having a hard time holding back but he felt her tighten even more around him as she got increasingly wet. Her cries were sure to wake up everyone in the camp as they climaxed together. Sandor watched as their fluids mingled and seeped out around his still hard cock as he slowed the pace to slow and languid blows.

 

Her legs were shaking again.

 

Sandor stayed inside of her and bent low to plant a line of kisses down her neck. He had no idea what the fuck possessed him to do that but it made her smile and sigh contently.

 

“Mmm. Good morning,” she said as she let her eyes flutter closed.

 

Sandor laughed. “It was my idea of a good morning. That's how I would have wanted to be woken up.”

 

He pulled out of her and saw the stream of come run down the insides of her perfect thighs. She laid on her back and let her breathing slow to a calm pace. “If you didn't fall, then what happened?” she said as she ran a hand tenderly over the scarred half of his face.

 

Sandor grabbed her wrist tightly. “Look, just because we fucked doesn’t mean I'm going to be divulging all of my secrets to you.” He flung her wrist down and got out of the bed.

 

“Well, excuse me!” she said as she sat up in bed looking thoroughly pissed and if she might cry. “I didn’t know it was some taboo subject.”

 

“It's just not very polite to ask people why they are so horrifically disfigured.”

 

The Khan girl came in to the tent and set to heating water for their bath. They needed one. The woman looked at Sandor's nude figure and quirked an eyebrow. Sandor found himself strangely uninterested. That woman just didn’t do it for him as Sansa's slick fluids were drying on the cock the woman was eye-fucking so intensely. He looked back to Sansa who seemed to have noticed. She was staring at her lap and shedding silent tears.

 

“It's kind of a bad time!” he barked at the Khan woman.

 

She snarled mildly at him and turned and left. Sandor shook his head.

 

“I can't believe you are trying to tell me what is impolite,” Sansa muttered to her lap. “I was just making conversation.”

 

“No. No _personal_ conversations. Conversations turn into feelings and shit and I can't have you falling in love with me. I need to get you back to Robb.”

 

Sansa stared at him with a disbelieving look on her face. “Oh, and this is a problem you run into a lot with all of your irresistible charisma? It's not an issue. Forget it,” she said as she got out of bed and poured the boiling water into the tepid water already in the tank. She stepped in and sank down into the now steaming water.

 

Sandor stared at her as she rested her head on the edge and closed her eyes. Her hair swirled in the water around her and in that moment with her cheeks flushed a pretty pink, she was the prettiest thing he had ever seen.

 

He wasn't worried about her feelings. She was a chick. She had a ton of feelings.

 

He was worried about his, and the possibility of developing some at all.

 

Sandor moved over to where the girl was soaking and picked up the sponge and the soap. He lathered the sponge and started to brush it along Sansa's collarbones.

 

Her eyes flew open, “What are you doing?”

 

“I'm washing you.”

 

Sansa looked him in the eyes and Sandor thought her look was dubious and a little sad. She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around her knees. She let him scrub her back as she pulled her wet hair up away from her long neck. Sandor felt the twitch of his cock but left her alone.

 

“Don't get any ideas,” she said over her shoulder as the like witch read his mind.

 

“It was my brother,” he said after a few moments of silence.

 

“What?” she said turning and resting her arms on the edge of the tank. She laid her pointed little chin on her arms and looked at him with a curious expression. He perfect round ass bobbed out of the water and made Sandor stop caring about his story.

 

“Never mind,” he said as he dipped his hand into the water to find one of her small perfect tits.

 

“Stop! What were you going to say?”

 

Sandor sighed and took his hand back out of the water. He got up and crossed the tent and grabbed the Rad-X pills from his pack. “You asked what happened to my face,” he said taking a pill from the bottle. He grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the table and brought them to Sansa. “Here, take this.”

 

“What is it?” she said looking at it skeptically.

 

“It's a roofie. I want to abduct and rape you. Oh, wait...”

 

She took it from his outstretched palm and put it in her mouth. “It's only rape if I'm unwilling.” She quirked an eyebrow up at him and chugged a few gulps of the whiskey.

 

“Don't tempt me, girl.”

 

She laughed. “So your brother did that to your face?”

 

The smile fell from his face. He couldn’t believe he was telling her this. No one knew the story of his characteristic scars. “Yeah, he did.”

 

“Was it an accident?”

 

Sandor scoffed bitterly. “If you consider grabbing me by the hair on my head when I was six and shoving my lovely face into the coals of a campfire an accident.”

 

Sansa was horrified. “Why would he do that?” she gasped through her fingers which she had covered her mouth with.

 

“Because I was playing with one of his old toys that he had long outgrown and because he is evil.”

 

Sansa's eyes were shining with tears and pity. This was exactly why he didn't tell anyone. He preferred the fear in people's eyes when they formed their own conclusions to the pity when they learned the truth. “Don't look at me like that.”

 

“I'm sorry. That's just awful.”

 

“Yeah, I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”

 

She reached a tentative hand up and softly touched the scars on his face. He couldn't feel anything physically through the thick scar tissue but he could feel something soft stir deep inside of him. No one had ever shown him any tenderness in his adult life.

 

“I think they are interesting. It's kind of... terrifying but they make you sort of.... handsome.”

 

Sandor snorted. “Sure. Every girl's dream guy is a mutilated monster.”

 

“Do other women not agree?”

 

“That would be hard to say. Come on, let's get you clean before you hog all of the hot water.”

 

She smiled and let him clean her from head to toe. The gesture was far more intimate than any other he had experienced and he was pretty uncomfortable but her purs of satisfaction were almost worth it.

 

She climbed out of the tub and got dressed as he suck down into the tepid water. She sat down on the stool and returned the favor with gentle relaxing strokes. When she reached his groin, he stiffened instinctually making her giggle.

 

“You just can't help yourself, can you?”

 

“Not very well. Especially after twice in two years.”

 

“Two years?”

 

“Not many women find the scars handsome.”

 

She smiled and kept washing until they were both scoured clean. He got up and got dressed and they made their way out of the tent. When he looked up into the bright sky, the sun was almost already directly overhead.


	11. Chapter 11

 

**Sandor**

 

They went to Drogo and Dany's tent to say thank you and goodbye. It wasn’t really his style but the little bird had insisted. It wasn’t a complete waste of a trip because they got a few useful things out of the deal.

 

Drogo gave Sandor a wicked looking new _arkah_. Sandor was convinced that he would rip out his own gut before he ripped out any opponent but he liked it anyway. It looked dangerous and he was sure it would be once he learned how to properly use it. Drogo also gave him a pitch black wolf pelt cloak. It was a lot warmer than the woolen one he had but in all the snow it was going to stick out like a sore thumb.

 

Sansa got some warm clothes from Dany and a bottle of wine. Sandor was thankful for the wine but scowled at the new clothes that covered up her delicious body. He would just have to be sure to get her out of those every time they stopped.

 

They were given some food and some clean drinking water and a refreshment of their first-aid kit.

 

Sandor was thankful when Drogo asked him about the Psycho in his native tongue. Sansa wouldn't know Dothraki. _“Want a couple of doses of Psycho for the road? You haven't been here for a while.”_ The Khans were one of the wastelands biggest suppliers of drugs. At one point, he had been to see Drogo several times a week.

 

Sandor eyed Sansa nervously. She seemed confused on whether Drogo was expecting an answer from her or not. _“I'm psychotic enough.”_

 

Drogo laughed. _“Don't tell me you have given it up. You were a beast when you shot that stuff up.”_

 

“ _I didn't really want to start living with the fiends. Besides, I'm a beast without it too.”_

 

“ _The fiends have been a problem lately. They have been ambushing our supply caravans. I could use a beast to guard the bigger shipments. I could pay you however you like. Caps or substance. I could set you and your woman up in a big tent with anything you could want.”_

 

Sansa looked uncomfortable when Drogo nodded his head towards her. Sandor answered for her. _“She doesn’t do drugs and she isn't mine, Drogo.”_

 

“ _The noises coming from your tent said otherwise.”_ He laughed loudly and swigged more of his beer. _“Fine, but if you change your mind, let me know.”_

 

“I will. Come on,” he said to Sansa. She timidly took her cue with a last smile to Dany and followed him out of their tent.

 

Once they were outside, she spoke up. “What was that language you were speaking?”

 

“It's Dothraki. I've spent enough time with the Khans to pick it up. It's hideous if you ask me. Too guttural.”

 

“I heard Dany speak it to Drogo at dinner last night but she also said something else to one of her handmaids. It was a pretty language.”

 

“There is no telling. That girl can speak every language in the wasteland it seems like but if it was really pretty then it was probably High Valyrian or Volantene. She's picked up those girls from all over the place.”

 

“Are they slaves?”

 

Sandor scoffed. “Hardly. Dany doesn’t believe in slavery and ever since she came along, neither does Drogo. Drugs aren’t the only thing he used to sell. Those handmaids are free but they won't go anywhere.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Because they live better lives than Robb's wife does in Winterfell. They-”

 

“Robb is married?!”

 

“Last I was there. She was huge too. About to spit out a litter by the looks of her.”

 

“Wow.”

 

They carved a path through the snow as they made their way west of the old armory the Khans called home. He found himself wishing that he had stayed in the Khan's camp and fucked the little bird for the rest of the week. It had been dry and warm in their cozy little tent. Out here his eyebrows were forming icicles and a crust of snot was stuck to his short stubble under his nose. He looked behind him to check on the girl and found her trying to stretch her legs to match his footprints.

 

He started to take shorter steps.

 

He checked his GPS. There was a scrapyard up ahead that would be an ok place to stop. It would be dangerous and it wouldn’t afford them much shelter, but at least they could get out of the wind long enough to get a fire going and eat something. They were going to have to make it to the Meresti Trainyard before they stopped to sleep. They could rest in the tunnels out of the snow and out of the wind. It would at least be dry.

 

“Just a little further and we can stop!” he yelled over the cacophony that the wind had risen to.

 

Sansa shook her head quickly and wrapped her furs tighter around her neck. Sandor trudged through the snow that was up to his knees. His feet were soaked and freezing in his boots. If he was this miserable then the little bird must be ten times worse off than he was.

 

The wind brought a sound to his alert ears that he hadn’t been expecting. It was barking and snarling.

 

_Please don't let this be a direwolf._

 

The snow brought his visibility down to only a few meters. Gun or not, the wolf would have a distinct olfactory and visible advantage. He pulled his .45 from his holster and saw the chainlink and barbed wire fences of the scrapyard manifesting out of the snow as the sounds of humans yelling something unintelligible joined with the savage sounds of something angry and canid. Sandor walked through the gates of the junkyard and towards the sounds of the scuffle. He held up a hand to Sansa for her to stop.

 

She stilled and looked to him for elaboration.

 

He pushed his hand on her shoulder and pushed her behind a stack of rubble. She crouched in her cloak and shivered under his touch.

 

Her lips were blue.

 

He prowled around to where the struggle was still spilled in bright steaming red streaks across the melting snow. With his .45 pulled from his holster, Sandor moved until he saw the crouched direwolf still snarling at the bodies that it had just ripped the life from. When the snow crunched under his boots, the bitch turned on him and bared her still dripping bloody fangs at him. He tensed and readied his pistol at the coiled animal.

 

“Stop!” Sansa yelled at him over the din of the wind.

 

“I told you to stay back there! Sansa!” The girl had stepped forward between him and the direwolf with a hand held out. The large wolf relaxed and crept towards her warily. She smelled Sansa's hand and gave it an appreciative lick.

 

Sandor felt his jaw drop with a huff of steam as Sansa stroked the thick fur behind the wolf's ears and retracted her hand whole and un-mauled. The hulking wolf was up to the girls waist and nuzzled her elbow when she stopped petting it. Sandor had dropped his gun as he stared in amazement.

 

_How the fuck had this girl tamed this beast in the span of seconds?_

 

Sansa walked back to a dumbfounded Sandor and smiled prettily at him.

 

“What the fuck was that?” he yelled over the howling wind.

 

Sansa looked down at the wolf that had followed her. “She didn't kill all of these people. She must have belonged to one of them.”

 

Sandor shook his head. “She could have killed you!”

 

“She's just scared and lost. You saved me when I was scared and lost.”

 

Sandor rolled his eyes and walked over to the bodies on the ground. There were three wildlings and a simple scavenger. The direwolf must have belonged to the scavenger.

 

Sandor noticed a small office building on the west side of the scrapyard that he hadn’t remembered being there. They might be able to stay here tonight after all.

 

They were never going to make it to Winterfell if the weather didn’t improve.

 

“Come on!” he said pointing to the small concrete building. Hopefully nothing was lurking inside.

 

Sansa nodded and they made their way to the enclosure. Sandor tried the knob and readied his pistol again. He lit his GPS and shined it inside. He scanned the cluttered room and was met with only silence.

 

This was clearly where the wildlings had come from.

 

Some mattresses had been laid on the floor and there was litter all over the place. There were various foodstuffs and spare junk on the desk of the small office. Sandor looked through the desk drawers and found a few things of interest. There was some ammo but not any .45's. The .556 rounds would be handy for his assault riffle on his back, though.

 

Sandor heard the door close and turned to find Sansa and the direwolf looking around the room.

 

“Get that thing out of here. I won't have her ripping my throat out in my sleep.”

 

“She won't. She can't stay out in that storm, she'll die.”

 

“You say that like it's a bad thing.”

 

Sansa looked at him reproachfully. “Please let her stay.”

 

Maybe letting the bitch stay inside would win him some brownie points and get him a blowjob. “Fine.”

 

Sansa beamed and skipped over to him. “Thank you!” She jumped up into his arms with her legs wrapped around his waist and her arms wrapped around his neck. She kissed him softly and Sandor felt his cock twitch in his pants. He didn't even try to hold back the desire to rut against her. Her tongue gave his lips one last lick and she pulled back and dropped down on her feet. “Behave,” she said with a teasing look. “Let's get warm and eat first.”

 

“That _will_ keep us warm and I can think of nothing I would rather eat,” he said as he eyed her body as she shucked out of her heavy layers. “But you have to put the dog out. I don’t want that thing watching me lave at your pretty little cunt.”

 

Sansa blushed. “What if she runs away?”

 

“Then I'll make it up to you,” he said as he slipped his freezing hand down the front of her pants. She gasped and her eyes flew wide as he warmed his finger in the lips of her damp pussy. It was so hot it almost burned him. He teased her clit as her head fell back and she whimpered. He slipped two of his fingers inside of her when he felt her get wetter from his tickling. She rocked her hips back and forth on his fingers and fucked them deeply.

 

“Oh....” she moaned. “Sandor...”

 

He had to admit, hearing his name on her lips was sweet and made him harder than steel. He pulled his fingers out of her and out of her pants. He brought them up to her lips and forced them into her mouth. She looked shy but she sucked her juices lightly off of his fingers.

 

_If only that were my cock...._

 

To see this woman's lips wrapped around his shaft as he came in her mouth and forced her to swallow his load.... he could die happy.

 

“Let's eat,” he said as he pulled his fingers from her mouth and tasted them himself. There was still a hint of her tangy taste slicked along his knuckles. She had fucked his hand deep.

 

“Are we staying here tonight?” she asked as he cracked a small window behind the desk and made a fire in the cold pit the wildlings had made.

 

“Yeah. The storm is getting worse.”

 

“At least we have beds.”

 

He couldn't argue. “All the better to fuck you, darling.”

 

“You don’t think of anything else do you?”

 

Sandor shrugged his shoulders and sat up as the fire sprang up and he felt the heat lick uncomfortably along the plans of his face. He backed up quickly and sat on the mattress next to her. “I think about some other things. Give me your pack.” She handed him her back pack. He took out the deer steaks they had gotten from Drogo and Dany and prepped them for the fire. “It's kinda hard when you are sitting so close. I can smell how turned on you are.”

 

She looked scandalized, like her body had betrayed her.

 

“It makes me hungry for more than just deer,” he said as he positioned the steaks on the grill the wildlings had set up.

 

The direwolf looked up and sniffed the air as the fire seared the bloody meat but didn’t get up from where she was laying by the door.

 

“She's the nicest direwolf I’ve ever met.”

 

“She's special.”

 

“She is that.”

 

Maybe she was.


	12. Chapter 12

 

 

**Arya**

 

Arya bolted upright as she woke from the dream she had been having. It had been so real.

 

And so weird.

 

She looked around her and saw nothing in the blackness of West Farragut Metro station. She had holed up in one of the small offices before descending down to the tracks and following them to GNR headquarters. She clicked on the light of her GPS and blinked as the dim green glow filled the room.

 

She shook the memory of the bizarre dream from her mind and got up to gather her things and scavenge the offices one more time. She riffled through the desk drawers of the two desks and found some empty .45 casings.

 

She shook her head and pinched the bridge of her nose. What had made her dream of him? He had been dead for over a year. Sansa was mostly likely dead as well and she hadn’t seen Nymeria in over three years.

 

_What had made her dream of ghosts?_

 

And why the fuck did he come to mind every time she saw a .45?

 

_Because you are carrying his precious gun. You took Blackhawk from him as he was dying._

 

He deserved what he got.

 

_Valar Morghulis_

 

Arya's thoughts went back to her dream and how Sansa and The Hound had been talking to each other and kissing each other.

 

Arya shuddered. He had been fingering her and they were talking about sex. The idea was insane. Her delicate sister would have never been with someone like Clegane. What had possibly possessed her clearly addled brain and paired the two, she couldn’t guess.

 

She was just happy that she had woken up before her deeply disturbed sub-conscious had conjured any more images. She would have had to have killed herself if she had imagined his cock.

 

Arya slung her pack over her shoulder and crept out of the office. She knew she would be encountering plenty of White Walkers down here on her way to see Three- Dog. It was dangerous but she would surely get plenty of ears today. The Regulators were a group of people who had a bounty for any and all evil people out in the wastes, including Walkers. They gave you caps for each ear brought to Trader Joe in the scrapyard north of Winterfell.

 

 

Arya was reminded of her dream again as she thought of Trader Joe and the scrapyard. Flashes came back to her as she traversed deeper into the darkness. Trader Joe bleeding out from the stab wounds in his chest. Hot blood running down her throat and chin as a set of desperate hands fought in vain to push her away from their tender throats. Sansa petting her thick fur. Sansa running into The Hounds arms. The smell of searing meat.

 

They had been at the scrapyard.

 

She had been the wolf.

 

It was beyond strange. Why couldn’t she have dreamed of Jon and Ghost? Or of Robb and Grey Wind? She remembered that Sansa's direwolf had been killed on their trip to the capital before the war; the same time she had run off Nymeria. She hadn’t seen her father, her sister or her beloved companion since.

 

Arya wanted desperately to believe that her dream had meant something but she knew that was a lost hope. Dwelling on hopes and dreams had been Sansa's thing... and she had seen how well that had panned out for her sweet naïve sister.

 

She was still trying to shake the images of Sansa giving The Hound a blowjob.

 

 


	13. Chapter 13

 

**Sandor**

 

The head he had gotten from Sansa the night before in the office of the scrapyard had been beyond what he had expected. Her awkward and naïve ministrations to his shaft had been the sexiest thing he had ever seen. Even sexier than walking in on her finger fucking herself and moaning his name. She had blushed the prettiest shade of pink when she had put his tip in her mouth and looked up at him questioningly.

 

_She had had no clue what she was doing._

 

For some reason, he had held himself back from grabbing her by the hair and fucking into her throat as brutally as he fucked into her cunt. She had gagged halfway down his hardened length; he was sure she wouldn’t appreciate being asphyxiated with his cock. He found out quickly enough that skull fucking her pretty pink mouth was very unnecessary. When she had run the tip of her tongue along his slit, he had spilled his load right down her throat. Like the diligent learner she was, she swallowed every last drop.

 

He had even forgotten about that goddamn direwolf watching them from the corner.

 

He woke up with a harder-than-diamonds erection that morning. He vaguely remembered dreaming about doing the things to Sansa that he had refrained from. It was still dark outside and the sounds of the violent wind had died to an eerie silence. The storm must be over. Sandor looked beside him and saw that Sansa had rolled over onto her stomach and was still sleeping peacefully.

 

_Not for long._

 

Sandor got up and stoked the coals of the fire and added some more wood before he came back to the mattress on the floor. Sansa stirred as he slipped back under the furs and inched down until his face was at the juncture of her thighs. Even in the dark under the thick skins, he could see the perfect curve of her ass cheeks and the pink slit between them. He repositioned his dick so he wasn’t laying painfully on top of it and slowly hitched up one of her legs to open her wider for him. He watched her lips part and expose her to his watering mouth. He softly ran his thumb along her folds and enticed her opening to leak her sweet juices. He circled her entrance until she was dripping down the crevices of her sex and onto her hardened clit. He dipped his head a stretched his tongue out until it found the small nub of sensitive flesh. Her hips bucked in her sleep and sent his nose into her wet cunt. He swirled his tongue against her until her hips found the rhythm and followed him.

 

The concentrated scent soaking his face and the taste were enough to drive him crazy but he refrained from reaching down and pleasuring himself.

 

As he lapped at her wet hole and thrust his tongue into the tight heat, he heard her moan breathlessly.

 

“Oh, Sandor,” she said as she lifted her hips and propped herself up on her knees. She had woken up. She pulled the furs back and rocked her body back onto his tongue. Sandor kneeded the flesh of her hips and stilled her. He rolled onto his back and worked his head in between her trembling knees.

 

Sansa raised up and looked down at him between her legs. “What are you doing?”

 

“It will be easier to ride my face this way,” he said quirking up an eyebrow. Sansa blushed but Sandor pushed her shoulders back down onto the bed. He grabbed her by her thighs and pulled her down onto his mouth again. His tongue swirled around her hot wet flesh as Sansa gasped and cried out in pleasure. He had much better access to her this way and his cock wasn’t pinned painfully underneath him.

 

“Oh my god!” Sansa moaned as he sucked lightly on her clit.

 

He felt a rush of moisture on his chin and brought his fingers up to stroke her. He thrust two of his fingers into her as he continued to suck on her clit causing Sansa to writhe in pleasure and cry out as she approached her peak. She pressed her pussy down onto his face as he felt her muscles constrict tightly around his fingers.

 

“More! Don’t stop. Please!” she gasped as he worked her into cumming in his mouth.

 

He pushed another finger into her and stretched her even further open. She shuddered slightly and tensed against the invasion but relaxed again as she moaned his name over and over.

 

As she came, she suddenly sat up again making his fingers slip wetly out of her. He kept his tongue working on her clit until he felt a gush of hot liquid pour into his mouth and down his chin. Both of their eyes widened in shock. Sansa flashed a violent crimson and quickly climbed off of him.

 

“What the fuck?” Sandor said as he sat up. His chin and beard were thoroughly soaked and he swallowed down the sweet and slightly tangy cum.

 

“I-I don’t know. I'm so sorry,” Sansa stuttered.

 

“No. Why the hell did you get off of me?” he asked a bit too defensively. “You seemed to have enjoyed it.”

 

“Did I just-” she began through her mortification.

 

“Yeah, you did and that was fucking hot,” he said with a small chuckle. Sandor grabbed her by her hips again and dragged her underneath him. He pressed his cock against her swollen slit and pushed his way in.

 

“What are you doing?!” Sansa asked as she tried to get away from him. He wasn’t going to stop now though. Not after that. “Stop!”

 

Sandor held her down and pounded into her in hard deep strokes. She put up a short fight but gave up when the pleasure overwhelmed anything else. She soon had her legs wrapped around his waist and was clawing viciously at his back and arms. It didn’t take long until Sandor was close to his own orgasm and was surprised by the inability to control it. He pressed into her as deep as he could go and let his release spill in short hot bursts.

 

They were both panting as he rolled off of her and laid down to catch his breath. He ran his hand down his face and found it wet from sweat and from her orgasm. Sansa curled up on her side well away from him. He turned his face to look at her but she didn’t meet his eyes.

 

“You alright?” he asked more out of curiosity than actual concern.

 

“I'm fine,” she said quietly.

 

Sandor looked at the window and saw that the sun had come up. “We should get going. I want to make it to Meresti today. Come on.” He got up and got dressed as they busied themselves with scavenging everything they needed from the small office. He took the .556 rounds from the desk drawer along with some medical supplies and some caps. He found a small safe behind a picture and Sansa set to work on picking the lock.

 

He had just finished raiding the kitchen cabinets when she quietly announced that it was open. “Got it.”

 

“Sweet! You're getting good at this, little bird.” He went to kiss her but she recoiled.

 

“What is your deal?” he asked as he swung the safe door open and began to examine its contents. There was a small 9mm and four spare clips along with a box of .44 magnums, caps, and medical supplies. “Huh?” he emphasized when he didn’t get an answer.

 

“Nothing!” she spat back.

 

“Fuck me! Alright. Just doesn’t seem like nothing. Here,” he said handing the 9mm over to her.

 

“I don’t want that,” she said as she held it gingerly. She was looking at it like it was going to explode in her face.

 

“Well, don’t you think you need it?” he asked as if he was addressing a small child.

 

“I don’t even know how to use it,” she said exasperatedly.

 

“I'll show you. Here,” he said leaning down and taking the hip holster out of the desk drawer. He went to wrap it around her waist but she snatched it from him and started to buckle it herself.

 

“I can do that,” she snapped.

 

“Ok, what the hell is your goddamn problem?”

 

“I said, it's nothing.”

 

“This isn’t nothing and you aren’t going to like me very much if you continue to be a sullen little bitch all day. You have been weird ever since...”

 

_Ding. Lightbulb._

 

“Please, just drop it. I'm sorry I was rude,” she groaned.

 

“Are you kidding me?”

 

“What?”

 

“This is about you cumming on my face, isn’t it? You are embarrassed again, aren’t you?”

 

“I said drop it, Sandor!”

 

“No. This is exactly how you acted when I found you masturbating in the tent. Is that the first time you have ever done that?”

 

“What? Peed on someone?! Yeah, it is!” she said as she started to tear up from her mortification. “I said I was sorry! I have no clue what happened! Lets just get out of here!”

 

Sandor couldn’t help the laughter that was threatening to steal every bit of air from his lungs. Sansa's tears spilled over and began to flow in earnest as she whirled around and stomped out the door with the direwolf hot on her heals.

 

“Sansa,” he managed through breaths. “Wait!”

 

She was gone out of the door before he could manage anything else. He wiped the tear away from the corner of his eye and snatched up all of his things before he bolted out of the door after her. When he stepped out into the wasteland, the sound of the direwolf put him on edge instantly.

 

“Sansa?!” he said as he pulled his .44 from his holster.

 

“Sandor!”

 

“Sandor? Shut the fuck up!” came a smooth deep voice.

 

He heard Sansa's choked sobs around the corner of the office. He saw the footprints of hers and the wolves in the snow and followed them. When he rounded a pile of debris, he stopped suddenly and found Osney Kettleblack with his sawed-off pointed at Sansa's temple. The direwolf was crouched nearby and coiled like a spring. She was bearing her fangs at Osney.

 

“Osney,” Sandor growled. “What the fuck are you doing here?” Sandor looked down at Sansa clutched to Osney's chest. Her eyes were wide with panic and silently pleading with him for help. She was visibly trembling and looked close to collapse against Osney's large frame.

 

“Sandor? Since when do people call you _Sandor_?” Osney mocked. “And where the fuck did you find Sansa Stark?”

 

Sandor lowered his gun with a sigh. “It's just you. I was actually worried there for a minute.”

 

Osney smirked. “So what? You were going to take her to Winterfell? I thought Robb didn’t want you back.”

 

“I'm sure he would like to have his sister back.”

 

“I'm sure he would. I’m sure his pockets would be overflowing with gratitude and caps to have her back,” Osney sneered greedily.

 

“Put that thing down before you hurt yourself,” Sandor chided.

 

Osney lowered the gun from Sansa and before another word could be said, the direwolf was on top of Osney snarling viciously and tearing at any flesh she could get a grip on. Sandor took the opprotunity and snatched a stunned Sansa by the wrist and tugged her after him through the scrapyard leaving Osney's gurgling screams behind them.

 

“Where are we going?” she panted.

 

“We're getting the fuck away from here. That asshole has two brothers that are just as horrible as he is,” Sandor said as the screams were suddenly cut off. “Or was.”

 

“What about Lady?”

 

“Who?”

 

“The wolf!”

 

“You named it?”

 

“She saved me!”

 

Sandor sighed heavily. “She will catch up if she really wants to.”

 

Sandor took a look at the GPS on his wrist and didn’t see any red dots on his radar to indicate an immediate threat. There was a fast approaching green dot that indicated an incoming friendly. Just as he had promised, the direwolf galloped to Sansa's side and licked at her hand.

 

“Lady!”

 

Sandor stopped and pulled his assault rifle from his back and scanned the area both on his GPS and around him. The wolf was calm and panting happily with blood still staining her lips as Sansa sobbed into the thick fur of her neck.

 

Sandor lowered his gun but didn’t holster it. “Come on. I want the fuck out of this maze.”

 

Sansa gathered herself up and and hurried after Sandor through the scrapyard. Once they were out of the gates, Sansa noticed a radio tower looming up out of the hills to the west. “What is that?”

 

“A radio tower. Woman named Agatha.”

 

“Is that were we are going?”

 

“No. I have never been there. I'd just as soon kill her and take her shit as go and visit her.”

 

“That's awful!”

 

“That's life. She does play nice music though,” he said turning on his GPS and listening to the vintage Stradivarius pouring out a mournful tune. They passed by her house about a mile to the south without stopping until the weak radio signal fizzled out. He was suddenly reminded of the merc who had made that radio transmission possible.

 

_Little bitch._

 

The old woman's music was one of the few pretty things in this ugly wasteland but he would smash the antique instrument over the head of the little cunt who had delivered it to Agatha. Then he would take his pistol back and shoot her and the old woman with it and loot them both.

 

They were almost to the Meresti trainyard when he broke the silence. “So are you not talking to me now?”

 

Sansa looked over but didn’t meet his eyes. “I get it. You don’t have to keep bringing it up so you can have a laugh.”

 

“God, do you always get so embarrassed by anything sexual?”

 

“Sandor, I said let it go!” she said whirling on him. “I said I was sorry! It was disgusting, I know.” The blush that was running up her cheeks was innocent and made something in him stir at the memory of that morning.

 

“Not really. You can squirt on my face any time you want.” Sansa had been taking a sip of water as he spoke and had choked on it at his words.

 

“Excuse me?” she sputtered and coughed.

 

“I don’t think you really get what happened. You had an orgasm, girl. You didn’t piss on me. If you had, we wouldn’t be here. That would be kinda gross. Just get over it,” he said quirking his eyebrows up at her. “It was hot.”

 

“That's never happened before,” she said bashfully.

 

“That's because you have never had me before. Felt good, didn’t it?”

 

She smiled and blushed furiously. She didn’t want to admit it. “Yes,” she whispered.

 

“Don't worry, I'll get you to do it again. Maybe next time you wont flip out.” he huffed out with a sigh. “You really need to lighten up.”

 

Sansa smiled up at him with a little twinkle in her eyes and he smiled back.

 

“Look,” he said pointing down a long sloping hill. “There is Meresti.”

 

 


	14. Chapter 14

 

**Sansa**

 

“You want me to go down into the gloomy pit of doom?!”

 

The sound of dripping water echoing off of the stone walls was the only thing she could hear after Sandor had opened up the chainlink gate leading into the decaying subway tunnel. She could see the glow of his GPS being swallowed by the darkness as his heavy footsteps receded farther and farther away.

 

“Don't leave me here!” she called in after him.

 

“Then come the hell on!” he snapped back. He sounded so far away.

 

“Sandor!”

 

“Sansa!”

 

She huffed and felt herself pout. She was still a little mad that he had laughed at her humiliation that morning at the scrapyard. She had temporarily forgotten about it when a man that could have been related to Sandor had grabbed her and held a gun to her head. He had had long black hair and piercing grey eyes. He had been beautiful unlike Sandor even with the three thin scars running over his brow and eye.

 

They had looked like claw marks.

 

She internally laughed at herself as she stepped gingerly into the subway station and began to descend. Why was she thinking about how that man had looked? He was going to rape and kill her and she had just thought that he had been _beautiful_?!

 

She looked ahead and saw the glow of Sandor's light as he rummaged through some lockers along the wall. He sorted through the contents and stuffed a few items into his bag and threw the rest on the littered floor. She kept her distance and watched him as he scavenged through the detritus.

 

He was far from beautiful. His grey eyes were stormy and dark. They weren’t ice cold like the mans had been. Osney, Sandor had called him. Sandor's long nose was crooked and a little hooked. It looked like it had been broken before but it added to his rugged and dangerous persona. Osney's nose had been straight and strong. His face had been shaved smooth and his jaw and cheekbones could have cut glass. He had been wearing a clean and professional set of full armor but Lady had found the chink at his vulnerable throat and saved her from she was afraid to imagine what.

 

Sandor was not beautiful but Sansa was beginning to believe that beautiful was dangerous. Sandor had been course with her but he had kept her safe.

 

She quickened her pace and stepped up next to him as he continued his search through the offices. He was mumbling to himself.

 

“Little bitch.”

 

“Are you talking about me?”

 

“Not everything is about you, you know,” as he threw down a handful of bullet casings in obvious rage.

 

“What's wrong?”

 

“Someone has been here. Recently.” He threw one of the empty casings at her. She scrambled to catch it and looked at it. It looked just like the ones that Sandor was always looking for. “That's a .44 mag. It's new.”

 

“So?”

 

“So, not many people own that kind of gun. If I find that little cunt...” His words trailed off as the direwolf began to growl low and dangerously. “When are we ditching that thing? It gives me the creeps.”

 

“She may come in handy.”

 

“I doubt that.”

 

“She just saved me from Osney!”

 

“I could have done that just fine. Pretty boy is nothing to worry about,” Sandor assured her smugly.

 

“What would he have done if you and the wolf hadn’t stopped him?”

 

“I don’t think you want to know. Or maybe you do. He has always been very popular with women, for obvious reasons.”

 

“I don’t know what you mean,” Sansa said blushing. Thankfully it was dark down here.

 

“Then you are the first. His looks are the first thing women notice about him. Its what makes him so dangerous. Beauty lures you in and blinds you right before it snuffs you out. We used to be friends. Chased a lot of tail and did a lot of drugs together. I'm sure it comes as no surprise that chicks always chose him over me. Doesn't matter. My dick is bigger than his.” He gave her a quick wink and started off farther into the station.

 

She smiled and trotted off after him. “Is that all guys care about? Size? What did you do line them up? Measure?”

 

“I haven't heard you complain yet. Osney and I got high off our asses and double teamed this chick in Riverrun once. I couldn’t help but notice,” he said as he shrugged his shoulders. “We had been slaving and had picked up this hot piece to sell to the slavers. We had a bit of fun before we sold her.”

 

Sansa stopped in her tracks and felt her jaw drop. Sandor noticed that she had stopped following him and turned around to look for her.

 

“What?”

 

“Slaving? Gang rape?”

 

“I warned you. I'm no fucking hero.”

 

“Is that what you are doing with me? How do I know you are taking me to Winterfell?”

 

“Because Robb will pay me better than a slaver would,” he said coldly as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “If I was going to sell you to the slavers, I would have kept you a virgin. They fetch a much better price.”

 

Sansa felt the tears stinging her eyes. She didn’t know if she was mad or hurt. “I wasn’t a virgin! And even if I was, I'm sorry that I am now ruined and won't get you as much money!”

 

“Excuse me! You fuck like a virgin so I just assumed-”

 

“Fuck you!” she shouted at him. The look on his face at her outburst wouldn’t have been more startled than if she had stabbed him. “I'm sorry it wasn’t as good as the Khan whore would have been or the “hot piece” you tag teamed with Osney.”

 

“What the fuck is your problem? Fucking like a virgin is a good thing! That cute little blush you get every time you see a cock is goddamn adorable and I have never came that fast from getting head. Not even from the Khan whore. Your cunt is a hell of a lot tighter too.”

 

“That Khan woman... did _that_ to you?”

 

“Well, I would have preferred you since you were the one who got me worked up in the first place but you stormed off when I asked you to hop onto it.”

 

“You had sex with her and then you had sex with me?!”

 

“I didn’t have sex with her! She just sucked me off!”

 

Sansa felt like he had hit her. Her eyes welled up as she turned her back to him and walked back into the office of the subway but he stormed after her. He snatched her by her arm and spun her around to meet his snarling face.

 

“Look, girl. I don’t know why we are having this conversation anyway. I am taking you to Robb so I can get _paid_. It's just a nice bonus that you are fucking me every step of the way. Once you are safe behind the walls of Winterfell, you will likely never see me again and can go live your prude princess life with your family. Do you see me grilling you about who you have screwed or who has been between your pretty white thighs? No. Because I don’t give a shit.”

 

Sansa had begun to sob as he he spit his hateful diatribe into her face. “You are a monster. Inside and out,” she hissed through her teeth between breaths.

 

He let go of her arm and straightened up to his full height. “I glad that you are finally paying attention.”

 

“Just take me home,” she said as she started to walk past him into the darkness of the station.

 

“I guess its safe to assume I won't be getting anymore head from you?”

 

Sansa whirled around on him and gaped. Sandor bit his bottom lip and thrust his hips towards her infinitesimally. She huffed again and stomped off down into the gloom.

 

… **.........................................**

 

The trip through the station passed by in silence. Sandor had unnecessarily told her to stay quiet. He was wary of alerting anything lurking in the darkness of their presence. She had nothing to say to him anyway. She knew it had been naïve and silly but she had begun to think that they were forming some sort of friendship or maybe even a relationship. Nothing had even been discussed and now that it had been she felt embarrassed and hurt by his lack of attachment for her. They enjoyed each other, or so she thought. They had been having sex every time they stopped and curled against each other tightly at night.

 

She had been disillusioned that he was saving her. He wasn't saving her. He had basically kidnapped her and was now selling her to the highest bidder. Luckily for her, that was her brother.

 

Her thoughts were suddenly cut off as she ran into Sandor's back.

 

He didn’t even falter or turn. He had turned off his light but she could still make out what had stopped him as he looked out over the mezzanine and town into the station.

 

Swarming around the abandoned subway cars were dozens of White Walkers.

 

Without taking his eyes off of the colony of lethal undead, Sandor pushed Sansa back the way they had come. She moved slow and grasped to his arm desperately. Once they were safely back up the stairway and through a hallway, Sandor began to check his gear.

 

“Please! I want to go back!” Sansa whispered urgently.

 

“Quiet!” he barked as he continued to rummage around his pack. “It's the fastest way across the river.” He began to pull grenades out of his pack as he irritably wrenched his sleeve from her death grip. He strung them up by the pins and attached them to his belt. He dug spare energy cells out of his pack and had them close and ready.

 

“You can't be serious!”

 

“What the fuck else are we going to do?”

 

“Anything!”

 

“This is the fastest way across the river. Do you want to go home or not?”

 

Sansa's heart was in her throat and beating violently. If she were anymore scared she would be throwing up.

 

“I cant do this, Sandor.”

 

“Not asking you to. Stay here. No,” he said looking over her shoulder. He backed her up and opened a door. He walked her into the small supply closet. “Hey! A safe. Get that thing open while I’m gone.”

 

“Take the direwolf!”

 

“I don’t think she would go with me anyway.”

 

Sansa looked down a the nervous animal. She had to admit that she would feel a lot better with her here but Sandor was going to need her more.

 

“Go with him,” she told the massive wolf. The wolf looked up at her and Sansa swore she had understood her. She growled and padded hurriedly out of the closet and into the gloom. Sandor closed the door in a hurry and trotted off after her. Sansa listened to his footsteps until she couldn’t hear them anymore.

 

Sansa took a deep breath and turned to the safe. She looked around at the shelves and found several interesting things. There was a first aid kit, several bottles of purified water, some potato chips, a flathead screwdriver and some spare electrical parts. She had just inserted the bobbypin into the lock when she heard two explosions, one right after another. She heard a screech and some gunfire but couldn’t fit the sounds into what could be happening. She worried at the lock on the safe until it was open and the noise had begun to fade.

 

Inside the safe were some more grenades and another energy pistol. It looked exactly like Sandor's. There were dozens of the little energy cells that the gun used to fire. Sansa examined the pistol and tried to remember how Sandor had loaded the cell into the gun.

 

She loaded everything into her back pack and fumbled with the gun a bit more until she remembered how he had loaded it. She remembered the safety he had shown her when he had first let her shoot at the White Walker and clicked it off.

 

She had just begun to relax when she heard a loud noise alarmingly close to the door of her closet. Someone or something was making it's way closer to where she was hiding. It's footsteps were heavy and its sounded like it was dragging something. Maybe limping.

 

She remembered that a lot of the White Walkers stepped heavy and limped slowly and steadily along.

 

Something was slowly making it's way to the door she was hiding behind and stumbling through all of the litter on the floor.

 

Sandor wasn’t that loud or that slow and deliberate.

 

Sansa felt her heart race almost painfully when the shuffling stopped just outside the door.

 

She grasped the pistol tightly in her hands as she pointed it towards the door just as the knob began to turn.

 

Sansa squeezed her eyes closed tightly and fired as the door swung open.

 

 


	15. Chapter 15

 

 

**Arya**

 

Arya was roused from her nightmare when she felt it. It started off as a mild tremor but quickly rose to an earth shattering quake and made the brittle tunnels around her crumble. Chunks of plaster and concrete started to rain down around her in the tiny janitorial closet she had holed up in.

 

Her pulse raced as she imagined being buried in this urban tomb.

 

Abandoning her bedroll and snatching up only her pack, Arya flung the door of the closet open and ducked out of the crumbling door frame. A large fissure in the concrete of the sewer tunnel was forming right above her head. Pieces of rock were raining down around her as she began to sprint towards the stairs that would lead her back to the entrance of the tunnels. It was thankfully close but as she began to dodge bigger pieces of debris, she worried that it was not close enough.

 

She came to a split in the tunnels and cursed herself when she couldn’t remember which way was her way to freedom and life. The air had become hazy with dirt and dust that had not been disturbed in years. Arya coughed and blinked past the grit trying to work it's way into her eyes and took her chances.

 

She had been charting these tunnels ever since she had begun exploring and trying to make her way through the dense ruins of the capital but she had no time to fish her map from her pack and inspect it.

 

She had to take a chance.

 

She had to pray to whatever gods might be listening that she had chosen the right way.

 

Arya sprinted off towards the left as a particularly large piece of concrete smashed down on the place she had just been standing. She wasn’t sure if it was panic or her innate sense of direction but she felt the tears prick her eyes as she followed a slope that led her steadily downwards.

 

_She needed to go up! Not down!_

 

The rumbling of the collapsing tunnels was deafening and the crashing of the rock only added to the confusion. She had begun to think she had gotten lost and had chosen wrong when she saw the steps leading their way steeply up to the hidden entrance.

 

Arya took them two at a time until her calves and lungs were on fire and her eyes were dry and stinging from the grit in the air. When she reached the door leading out of the sewer system, she flung it open and dove out into the clean and open air. The access door was on a narrow walkway in the side of brick wall of a memorial that had been built on a tiny island of the river. When she jumped out of the way of a falling rock she went headfirst into the toxic, irradiated and freezing water. The cold bit at her skin and felt like she was being cut by a hundred knives as more debris from the sheer wall was cascading down into the water around her.

 

One very big piece of cinder block wall grazed her side and snagged on her pack. She felt an intense burn as her skin was cut and scratched and the virulent water seeped into her wounds. The weight of the heavy rock pulled her down into the dark murky water and though she tried to struggle free from the rock, she mentally abandoned her pack and slipped out of the straps. Nothing in it was worth drowning for. She kicked and fought towards the surface when her lungs could hold her breath no more and the bubbles burst from her lips and nose.

 

The light was becoming brighter but the rush of ice cold water into her airways made her panic and made her feel weak. She gave one more desperate push towards the rippling water and broke the surface.

 

She sucked in a desperate breath and coughed up the water from her lungs as she clutched desperately for the wall beside her. Her fingers found purchase on the edge of the walkway and she clung tightly as she sucked in the freezing air.

 

The crumbling of the bricks and stone wall above her and stopped but a few of the bigger pieces had taken out the narrow walkway and left large gaps. She had to swim those and several times her head dipped below the surface when she felt too weak to swim. She had never been a strong swimmer anyway.

 

When she finally struggled to the rocky shore of the island she let her weakness and nausea take her. She knew she must be suffering from high levels of radiation poisoning as she spilled the contents of her stomach all over the closest rock, collapsed face first down into her own filth and closed her eyes. Her stomach was roiling and even the most feeble attempts at movement felt monumental. She heaved and choked on the small amounts of water and bile that were still trying to make their way out of her stomach. Her head was swimming and she felt like she was slipping into sleep.

 

She had begun to resign herself to a deep sleep as the waves of nausea began to subside when she felt two strong hands grasp her by her arm and attempt to flip her over. The burn in her shoulder made her wince and suck a deep breath in through her teeth. She blinked against the bright sky but the edges of her vision were going black despite her desperation to stay awake.

 

She didn’t know who had found her. She was wounded and mortally poisoned but she had to defend herself. She fought against the hands trying to subdue her when she felt that the obsidian knife on her thigh was gone.

 

The hands became forceful and were inhumanly strong.

 

The ringing in her ears peaked until it was deafening and all worldly sounds were drowned out.

 

Just as the blackness swallowed the world around her and her remaining strength left her body, the glowing eyes and sunken skin of a White Walker loomed over her.


	16. Chapter 16

 

**Arya**

 

“Smoothskin? Smoothskin, you in there?”

 

_What the hell does smoothskin mean?_

 

“Mrph slicsk,” was all Arya was able to slur out. Her tongue felt numb and she was pretty sure she was drooling. She tried to blink her eyes open but the blinding halo of light directly over her face was too much. The throbbing in her head was tangible and she was convinced that her brains were trying to escape out of her temples.

 

“Move the damn light Barrows, she's trying to open her eyes.” The deep raspy voice that had called her a smoothskin had come from directly over her head.

 

“I need to be able to observe her pupils. You don’t want the poor girl turning feral do you?”

 

“She could end up like us.”

 

“I don’t know.”

 

“You are supposed to be the leading expert on this shit.”

 

“I haven't exactly had a lot of smoothskins to examine, Beric. Go have a drink at Ahzrukhal's with Quinn, Lem and Gendry. Let me work.”

 

_Gendry?_

 

She heard a grumble and heavy footsteps retreating away from her. She didn’t recognize the voices. They were scratchy and grating. There was a merc, Bronn, that lived in Winterfell who smoked cigarettes constantly that had a voice that was pretty raspy but nothing like this.

 

“Come on smoothskin. Talk to me. Open your eyes,” came the raspy voice at her side.

 

Arya blinked langidly and noticed that the bright light was mercifully dimmed, making the room a little bit more bearable to look at. She licked her parched lips and noticed that there was a trickle of drying saliva running from the corner of her mouth.

 

“Here. Have some water,” came the voice again. “Its clean.” She blinked faster making the burn in the backs of her eyes slowly ebb. She felt a hand nudge a glass of into her hand. She found herself almost completely unable to grasp it she was so weak. She felt a dry and extremely calloused hand close around hers securing the glass in her hand. Another strong arm snaked under her neck and gently lifted her up as the glass was guided towards her dry lips. She closed her eyes as the tepid water flowed into her mouth and quenched a thirst she was unaware she had. The glass was gently lowered along with her head.

 

“Thank you,” she croaked.

 

Arya looked over to her caretaker as he began to answer her. “You are wel-”

 

His polite return of gratitude was cut off as Arya began to moan and fumble for any of her weapons. His eyes were glowing a bright blue and his pale sunken skin was a mottled macabre version of a humans.

 

He was a Walker.

 

“Please, Arya. Calm down. You are weak and need rest.”

 

“How do you know my name?!”

 

“I want to help you.”

 

“Who are you?! How are you talking?!”

 

“I will be happy to answer all of your questions if you will just-”

 

“This isn’t happening,” she moaned as she closed her eyes tightly and scrambled to get away from him. Her elbow hit a metal tray and send surgical tools flying, the sound causing her to jump and panic. “What are those?! What did you do to me? This isn't happening. I’m dead. Or I'm dreaming...” she kept moaning.

 

“Everything ok in here?”

 

Arya looked towards the sound of the voice at a door and recognized it as the one she assumed was Beric and felt her heart leap into her throat. “Oh my god!”

 

He was a Walker too.

 

“Get Gendry!” the one identified as Barrows shouted towards Beric as he tried to subdue Arya.

 

Arya felt weak and felt her head swim again as the lights began to fade and she felt her body give and slip back down onto the cot.

 

“Shhh. Calm down, smoothskin.”

 

“Gendry?” she asked faintly as she felt herself slipping away again.

 

“He's coming.”

 

… **..................................**

 

A sharp slap against the side of her face brought her back to the bright room just as a glass of water was dumped on top of her head. She sputtered and sat bot upright.

 

“We have to be careful!” Barrows chided.

 

“You can't kill this one,” came a familiar voice. Arya blinked past the water trickling down her face and looked around.

 

Gendry was sitting in a chair right beside her cot and the White Walker that had been absurdly referred to as Barrows stood just behind him.

 

Arya blinked and gaped dumbly at him for several long moments before she could form the words. “Is this a dream, Gendry?”

 

“No,” he said simply.

 

“Please tell me what the fuck is going on,” she said as calmly as she could even though she was on the verge of another panic attack. She couldn’t stop glancing between Barrows and Gendry as Gendry smiled simply at her.

 

“It's good to see you too,” Gendry said mockingly.

 

“Gendry-”

 

“Alright, alright,” he conceded bitterly. “This is Dr. Barrows. If it weren’t for him, you would look like him and Beric or you would be one of the ferals.

 

“Ferals?”

 

“The ones you and Gendry hunt in the subway tunnels.” Dr Barrows chimed in. “Their brains have been irreparably damaged by the radiation and it has made them feral.”

 

“And you and Beric?”

 

“Not feral,” Gendry said motioning behind him. “As you can see.”

 

“The radiation has had the same effects on our bodies as it has the ferals,” Dr. Barrows explained. “It has made us virtually indestructible despite our decayed appearance. The thing I have been trying to figure out is, what caused the split between the meta-humans and the ferals.”

 

“Dr. Barrows is studying a way to slow the advancement of the Walker condition, and maybe someday reverse it,” Gendry explained. “He's kind of the leading authority on the Walker condition.”

 

“This isn't happening,” Arya murmured to herself.

 

“Oh yes it is,” Gendry assured her with a huff of laughter.

 

“I need a drink,” Arya said as she stared blankly at her lap.

 

“Let's go to the Ninth Circle,” Gendry said as he gently took her elbow. Arya began to swing her legs over the side of the cot when Dr. Barrows protested.

 

“She shouldn't be up and walking around! We don’t know what long term effects the radiation could have on her!”

 

“I need a drink.”

 

“She needs a drink,” Gendry echoed as she stood gingerly.

 

“I can't help her when she is chugging swill from Ahzrukhal!”

 

“She's tough. She can handle it,” Gendry placated as he led Arya to the door of Dr. Barrows' infirmary.

 

“Come back and let me take a look later then. I can always use human samples,” Barrows called as the door swung shut behind them.

 

“Samples?!”

 

“He has a twisted sense of humor. He doesn’t get a lot of smoothskins down here in Underworld.”

 

“Underworld?”

 

“It's kind of a haven for disenfranchised Walkers.”

 

“ _Disenfranchised?”_

 

“Shh! You know, they see themselves as human,” Gendry whispered as he led Arya out into a massive concourse that housed two adjacent staircases and opened out into several smaller rooms. Arya felt her breath leave her in a huff when she saw about a half dozen Walkers meandering around in and out of the rooms and up and down the stairs. “Or “meta-humans,” as Barrows describes them,” Gendry went on. “They see themselves as disenfranchised. Where can they go in the Wasteland that will accept them?”

 

Gendry led her to one of the staircases and helped her make her way, one step at a time, up the steps. By the time she was at the top she was winded and exhausted.

 

“Just up here,” Gendry said motioning towards a pair of opened doors right ahead of them.

 

“How long have you known about this place?” Arya asked as she braced her hands on her knees and regained her breath.

 

“I don’t know, maybe about four or five months.”

 

“Four or five months?! Why didn’t you tell me?”

 

“Arry, I haven't seen you in almost four and we weren’t exactly getting along last time we saw each other anyway. You never wanted to go anywhere with me.”

 

Arya raised up from her bent position. “You could have mentioned it anyway.” She started to walk towards the doors where a sign was posted outside that read, “The Ninth Circle.”

 

_That’s exactly what this place is. The ninth circle of Hell._

 


	17. Chapter 17

 

 

**Arya**

 

Arya and Gendry made their way towards the bar where Gendry bee lined for a trio of Walkers who were laughing loudly and ordering another drink from the bartender. As they passed through the doors, the hair's on the back of Arya's neck stood on end as she got the feeling that someone was watching her closely.

 

She turned and saw a towering Walker standing in the dark shadow of the corner right beside the door. The two glowing blue pinpoints of his eyes were trained on her and though they seemed bored, they never left her.

 

Arya felt her skin crawl as she stared awkwardly at the massive and stoic “meta-human.” He towered over everyone in here and was easily the scariest thing she had ever seen. She didn’t think she had ever seen anyone as tall as this thickly muscled Walker except for maybe one person. He, however, was just a memory.

 

She would have loved to have seen the look on The Hound's face when he laid eyes on this monstrosity.

 

Suddenly, she felt a hand clamp over her shoulder causing her to jump and almost scream. This place made her edgier than anywhere else she had ever been. She whipped around and found Gendry guiding her to a stool at the bar where the three other Walkers were tucking into their drinks.

 

“I would leave that one alone,” he whispered into her ear. “Arya, this is Beric, Quinn and Lem,” Gendry said as he introduced her to the three ghoulish men sipping something that smelled like jet fuel. “Quinn was the one that found you.”

 

Arya smiled, despite herself. This was just a little too fucking crazy.

 

“How are you, doll?” Quinn asked as he passed her a glass of what looked like whiskey.

 

“I- I don’t know.”

 

“That was a nasty cut on your shoulder but luckily the radiation sped up the healing on that. You are lucky you aren't looking like one of us right about now, smoothskin,” Beric said as he toasted her and gulped the rest of his rocket fuel concoction.

 

“Doc Barrows did a good job on you, kid,” Lem said with a huff of laughter.

 

“I- I guess I should thank you, Quinn. For getting me out of the river,” Arya said.

 

“What was he supposed to do? Leave you there to die? We woulda taken you back here even if Gendry hadn't known who you were,” Beric said as if it was obvious. “Loverboy was worried sick,” he said with a nudge to Gendry's ribs.

 

“Hey, she's my friend,” he said way too defensively.

 

The Walkers rolled their eyes and continued to nudge him knowingly and rib on him some more when Arya's attention was caught by the rise of goosbumps breaking out over her skin and the shiver that ran down her spine. She looked over her shoulder and found the statue still Walker by the door staring openly at her with obvious interest. She looked away quickly and gulped her whiskey.

 

The bartender came over to refill her glass. “Yeah, he gets that reaction from a lot of people,” the ghoulish bartender said as he poured a small measure of the fine bourbon in her tumbler. He looked significantly more decayed than any of the other Walkers she had seen down here in Underworld so far.

 

“Who is that?” Arya asked as Gendry and his friends continued to make jokes at each other's expense.

 

“Charon Coldhands. He is my employee. I'm Ahzrukhal. This is my bar and that is my bodyguard. Pretty much, I point at something and Charon hurts it.”

 

Just as Ahzurkhal turned to top off the drinks of Gendry and Quinn, the small radio on the bar caught Arya's attention. It was Three-Dog from GNR. She had been on her way to Galaxy News when the earthquake had delayed her.

 

“.... bad news for you, boys and girls. That's right. That was no earthquake.”

 

“Did he say Winterfell?” Arya asked as she slapped Gendry on the shoulder. “Quiet!”

 

“.... Winterfell. No survivors have been reported in any of the surrounding settlements but reinforcements and aid have been sent to the-”

 

“Survivors?!” Gendry asked as he looked around to Beric, Lem and Quinn.

 

“Shh!” Arya hissed.

 

“.... don't have a lot of information yet but as always, GNR will bring you any news on this tragic collapse of the hub of the civilized wasteland. Robb and the whole Stark family, if you are out there, you have a friend in GNR. This is Three- Dog. Signing out with a heavy heart.”

 

The radio transmission clicked over to a song as Three- Dog's word echoed in Arya's mind. Everyone in the bar was staring at her. She turned to Gendry, who looked back at her with a worried look on his face.

 

“Gendry...?” she whispered questioningly.

 

Gendry just shook his head and whispered back. “I don’t know, Arry.”

 

 


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It occured to me as i was writing and re reading this, that i should probably provide a map. I am going with the Fallout 3 map and not the westeros map. (I had to pick one or the other.) I have charted the route that Sansa and Sandor have been taking and where i was taking them. 
> 
> In this fic (if you arent familiar with the game then this will need explanation. If you are familiar with Fallout, I was trying to drop clues) Megaton is Winterfell.

<http://inthesnowglobe.tumblr.com/post/78385985183/tthis-is-the-map-for-one-of-my-fics-on-ao3-its-a>


	19. Chapter 19

Sandor

“As if I wasn’t horribly disfigured and charred enough, Sansa.”

“I said I was sorry! I thought you were one of those Walkers!”

“Where did you even get the gun?”

“It was in that safe in the closet. There was a lot of good stuff in there but I broke my last bobbypin trying to get it open,” she said as she gingerly dabbed some of the ointment in their first aid kit onto his arm where the plasma blast had grazed him. The burn was bleeding and oozing some sort of yellow pus. She wrinkled her nose but tended to it without complaint.

Sandor sucked in a sharp breath of pain that made her jump. “What the fuck is that shit?! It burns even more!”

“What was that?!” Sansa gasped as a tremor rocked the ground beneath them.

“How the fu-” Sandor was cut off as he looked up to Sansa.

Behind her, far on the horizon, was an emerging mushroom cloud growing steadily higher in the sky. The look on his face must have given him away because when she looked back to him to see what had cut off his nasty reply, she whipped her head around to look at the cloud of dust from what could only be a small nuclear explosion. She jumped up from the rock she had been sitting on and backed up until she bumped into him wide eyed and trembling.

“Sandor, what is that? Was that a bomb?” Her voice shook with fear. “Sandor?!”

Sandor ignored her as he looked at the rise and fall of the horizon and thought,

_Winterfell is right about there._

Surely that wasn’t Winterfell. He must be misjudging the distance. No need to say anything to the girl and make her panic. Who would want to blow up Winterfell anyway? It was a thriving town and crucial part of wasteland trade routes. While Sandor wasn’t on best friend terms with them, the Starks were likeable enough people. They ran a safe and honest town.

No. He had just misjudged the distance.

Just as troubling, who the fuck had nuclear power like that anyway? That wasn't a mini-nuke. Mini-nukes were glorified grenades. That was the real thing and it had been in the general direction of Winterfell. Were the Starks stockpiling? Why would they detonate outside their own town? Maybe Winterfell had been attacked.

“Sandor! Answer me!”

Sandor looked over to Sansa. Her eyes were wide and worried. Her tiny hands were clutching tightly to the gauze and ointment like they were anchoring her to sanity. “Isn't that the direction we are going? Isn't Winterfell over there?” Her voice was pleading for him to tell her she was wrong.

He couldn't lie but he couldn’t tell her she was right either. It was hard for him to admit to himself that that was probably Winterfell that had just been blown to smithereens and he didn’t even like that fucking place. What else could it be? What else would be worth firepower like that if not Winterfell?

Her eyes searched his face for answers. “What do we do now? It cant be safe to go that way, can it?”

“We'll skirt it to the west. I don’t know what the fuck that was but I don’t want to get caught up in it.”

“How far is Winterfell from here?”

“Farther now if we are going to avoid that,” he said nodding towards the toxic cloud of dust and smoke. “We can still get there by tomorrow evening.”

Sansa nodded her head solemnly.

“Come on. Wrap this shit up. It hurts like hell, girl,” he growled at Sansa. “We can see if those brats in Big Town will let us in?”

“What is Big Town?” Sansa asked as she tied off the dressing around his arms with nimble fingers.

“When I was a slaver, there was this settlement out west of here. It was called Little Lamplight and it was this fucking creepy underground settlement of nothing but a bunch of kids. I haven't been out that way in ages. It may not even be there anymore. Anyway, whenever one of these little snot-nosed bastards got a little too grown up, he had to leave Little Lamplight. He went to Big Town.”

“You enslaved children?” Sansa asked appalled.

“Yeah, Sansa,” Sandor said exasperatedly. “Women and children pay the best. You asked what Big Town was, not for a goddamn fairy tale.”

“How could you possibly enslave children?” Sansa persisted as Sandor turned to start walking.

“Fuck girl,”Sandor exclaimed whirling on her snarling. “I'm a mercenary! Not a saint! How much more are you going to push me before I aim to demonstrate just that? You know, you haven't been much good to me so far other than a good nut every time we stop!”

She hadn’t shut up while the virtuous concerns spewed out of her perfect little cock sucking mouth! It was always something with her! She saw the world through rose colored glasses and she would never survive this violent Wasteland. Except that she had. Sandor considered her while her eyes widened with a noticeable spark before narrowing dangerously. She gave the smallest hint of a snarl before she turned and made her way towards the hill that hid Big Town. She had survived the lions den of Vault 108 and escaped unscathed. Of course, if he hadn’t found her, she certainly would have been scathed before long. She seemed to move fluidly through the Wasteland like she was an adaptable creature whose habitat had just changed. She was timid and naïve but she was capable of fighting back, Sandor thought as he felt the throbbing on his arm. He watched as she stormed off with a hint of pride and admiration.

She had a set of teeth on her. Another little wolf-bitch.

The sun was setting to the west of them and set Sansa's shadow long and lean out beside her. Her copper hair shone in the last remaining minutes of light. This woman was something special. He had to admit it to himself even if he didn’t admit it to her. Sandor scoffed at his own moment of weakness and set off after this surprising creature.

After about 15 minutes of walking, Sandor pulled on Sansa's upper arm to stop her just before she crested the hill. She whirled on him, still obviously furious and began to shout some lame protestation before Sandor clamped one of his massive hands over her face and hissed into her ear. “Shhh! We don’t know what is on the other side of that hill. Big Town is easy prey to a number of Wasteland abominations. Frankly, so are we. Stay here.”

Sandor crouched down and turned his back on the nervous girl. She had gone from the wolf back to the little bird right before his eyes at the mere mention of the unknown.

_Good. She is learning._

Sandor crouched low to the ground and came up over the edge of the hill beside the charred remains of a tree. It wasn’t much protection but it was some. Sandor checked the GPS on his wrist to check for any sign of activity. He saw a small cluster of friendlies milling around on the edge of his radar but no hostiles. Sandor looked up and scanned the horizon for any sense of movement.

This place was always being subjected to Slaver raids and Walker attacks. Neither was a pretty affair and Sansa was going to be just as vulnerable as those dippy little teenagers down there behind their pitiful excuse for a fence. The makeshift fence around the border of Big Town was a collection of the larger pieces of Wasteland detritus; sheet metal, plywood boards and 2x4s were the bulk of it. There were large gaps between the pieces of shit; large enough to send a bullet through. Walkers would just stupidly go around and cross the bridge leading over a small moat; it was the only entrance or exit through the fence. Slavers, however, would scale the flimsy fence and ambush. Sandor remembered all too well.

After feeling satisfied that it was safe to approach the little bulls eye that this settlement surely was, Sandor waved Sansa towards him and unstrapped the guns in both side holsters. Sandor gauged their position on his GPS every few steps as he hurried Sansa towards the small town. He checked the area constantly for any additional friendlies or for incoming hostiles. It was only the sparse population of Big Town milling around inside the walls. As they approached the small moat that lead them into the relative cover of the town, the sentry raised his scoped bolt action rifle and called out to them. Sandor took his eyes off of his GPS to approach the armed guard.

“There isn't anything here that hasn't been dragged away or destroyed, stranger,” the man at the post called to them as they came within talking distance.

“We were looking for a place to stay for the night and possibly a doctor,” Sandor answered as his hands ghosted towards his pistol. “We have caps.”

The man shifted nervously and eyed the pair. “We had a doctor but she was dragged off by Walkers about two nights ago.”

Sandor heard Sansa gasp at his elbow.

Sandor shook his head and looked down to take a quick glace at his GPS as the sentry was continuing his demoralized yammering. “You're better off scavenging the dead bodies out in the-”

“Get inside the walls!” Sandor exclaimed cutting off the startled sentry and shoved Sansa towards the bridge over the irradiated moat. She stumbled and looked around at him terrified.

“Get the fuck in!” Sandor shouted at her as he reached behind him and grabbed for his 5.56 assault rifle. At the edge of his radar, a dozen or so enemies, as indicated by the red blips on the screen of his GPS had swarmed towards the vulnerable town. Sandor backed up over the narrow roped bridge and watched as the horde made its way closer to the entrance of the settlement. “We've got about a dozen incoming hostiles, kid,” he barked to the panicked guard. He didn’t see anything yet as whatever it was that was making its way towards them hadn’t crested the hill yet, but they were moving too fast to be Walkers.

This was a slaving raid.

Sandor's stomach fell as he thought of who would be leading the slaving mission.

Paradise Falls was the Wastelands slaver capital to the North. Sandor had lived there for the short amount of time that he had been a slaver. He thought of who would be on this mission. Amory Loch and Vargo Hoat would surely be with them if someone hadn’t killed those twisted fucks yet. The Tickler wouldn’t be with them. He would be back at base torturing some poor soul for information or possibly just for something to kill the time.

Sandor was sure that he could guess who would be leading them though. He got off on raping and pillaging before he took them back to Paradise Falls to await auction.

Sandor hoped he had stayed behind today but doubted that he had. Sandor checked behind him to search for Sansa but didn’t see her anywhere. Hopefully she was somewhere hiding. She would be too sweet to pass up.

Over the crest of the hill, Sandor saw as four slavers made their way down the slope towards the entrance to the town. Sandor looked down at his GPS and saw as two other small groups split and went around to ambush from the east and the west, just like he knew they would. As the group heading for the entrance approached, Sandor's suspicions had been confirmed.

The figure making its way towards him was too big to be anyone else.


End file.
